Can you just top them off and plant them?

[lakelady]

I'm doing an indoor tomato project this winter. Of course I'm obsessing and wondering if they just don't fruit, and just grow leaves, what then? So it occurred to me that possibly, I could chop the tops off and then stick them in the garden once temps warm up again. Is that possible with indeterminates? I've heard of rooting cuttings, but can I just lop off half the plant and put in soil? Will it continue to grow again, but be ahead of my newly planted seedlings?

Since I've seen some of your plants that are so huge, I thought maybe this was a possibility.

Is there anyplace in the world where tomatoes never stop growing? Could you technically plant an IND tomato plant and if you never had a winter season, would it continue to keep growing ? Maybe that's a dumb question, lol, but I really want to know!

[afrance30]

Originally Posted by lakelady

So it occurred to me that possibly, I could chop the tops off and then stick them in the garden once temps warm up again. Is that possible with indeterminates? I've heard of rooting cuttings, but can I just lop off half the plant and put in soil? Will it continue to grow again, but be ahead of my newly planted seedlings?

A couple of years ago I did that with a Mexico Midget plant. The stem was completely severed in a storm, I put the top in a bucket of soil and it it produced tomatoes all season. So did the bottom section, in it's original pot. I thought I would lose the whole plant, but both sections grew fruit! I may have just gotten lucky. I often take cuttings from smaller stems, but never had tried a main stem like that. Maybe if it doesn't set fruit you could set out the whole plant in a container instead of trying to root the main stem. My Mexico Midget didn't grow any bigger, just set fruit on the branches already there.

I'm indoor gardening this year as well. Worked out really well last year, so trying new things this year. Fun!

[Elizabeth]

Tomatoes are short lived perennials. Given the right conditions they can last for more than a year, but not forever. I had one plant produce for about 18 months once. Usually disease does them in after a season even if you have a mild climate. Here in coastal Southern California we plant new ones mid-summer to replace the ones we know will konk out in Aug/Sept from blight or powdery mildew, and I have some cool-tolerant new ones going in now to see if I can get a decent harvest through the Fall and possibly winter, depending on the weather. While the weather is ok for them most of the year here (and in fact most years we get no frost so the cold wouldn't ever kill them), the diseases cut their lives short. The one I grew that lasted 18 months was an Early Girl Hybrid, so it was a bit tougher to kill than most heirlooms.

I don't have experience growing any veggies indoors other than seedlings, but it seems that an indoor tomato plant, given enough light, the right temps and nutrients that is having a happy life away from the diseases it's outdoor brethren are exposed to could last at least a year. You would have to be careful to not contaminate it with anything you used on veggies outside. It would be a fun experiment though I would try it, but my husband really hates the smell of tomato foliage, loves tomatoes, hates the plants, so growing one inside for a long time would not go over well.

[lakelady]

Originally Posted by afrance30

A couple of years ago I did that with a Mexico Midget plant. The stem was completely severed in a storm, I put the top in a bucket of soil and it it produced tomatoes all season. So did the bottom section, in it's original pot. I thought I would lose the whole plant, but both sections grew fruit! I may have just gotten lucky. I often take cuttings from smaller stems, but never had tried a main stem like that. Maybe if it doesn't set fruit you could set out the whole plant in a container instead of trying to root the main stem. My Mexico Midget didn't grow any bigger, just set fruit on the branches already there.

I'm indoor gardening this year as well. Worked out really well last year, so trying new things this year. Fun!

I have a new topic in container gardening for winter growing, feel free to add anything about your own experiments there, it should be fun to share and learn from each other....glad yours worked out really well!

Elizabeth, I cannot imagine 18 months on a tomato plant, that's awesome! Ah, I forgot about dreaded diseases. At least that is one thing I hopefully wont' get indoors, the fungus this year outdoors was terrible! Hmmm...I guess the tomato foliage "could" get quite strong indoors, never thought about it. Hopefully my son will get used to it or I'll be burning a lot of candles so I don't have to hear the complaints about "the smell". He's quite vocal about things he doesn't like (as if he has a choice?)

[vegomatic]

Mile-high gardening can be so much fun! It's all we can do to get ripe tomatoes before frost some years, so anything that extends our season is worth trying.

My first year with a greenhouse I planted a cherry tom late in the season that did poorly due to being overshadowed by all the other much larger plants. So I dug it up come frost and potted it up indoors. Overwintered it and a few other toms and peppers under cheap shop lights by a window. There were casualties due to getting root-bound and not enough light. After awhile I abandoned the lights and they just had to tough it out with the houseplants for the duration.
A few survived the winter, but they were very tall and gangly. I topped them as needed when they grew beyond the lights and by spring I had a 6' tall spindly cherry.

In the GH, I planted the cherry's rootball horizontally then trenched about 3' of stem. It sprouted anew from both ends and became the monster plant that year. We were inundated with cherry toms all season. I didn't try for another year, as it was getting leaf diseases at the end of season 2.

One Hungarian Wax pepper I grew 4 years, potting it up in winter like a house plant by a front window and back into soil in spring. It would lose lots of leaves but always sprouted new ones and the fruit got hotter and hotter over the years. It was showing it's age fourth year and the stem looked woodlike, more like a tree than a green-stemmed pepper.

This season I topped a few toms and stuck the 6" tops in very wet soil. As long as there's not a lot of leaf surface, they survive the stress quite easily and reroot quickly. So now I have some fresh, small starts that are already in fruiting stage with open flowers. One even has a small tom on it. No sign of aborting the flowers yet, so it should be a good experiment. They're in the gh bottom-watered in a tray so I don't have to tend to them much.

I haven't yet figured out where they're going indoors, but hopefully I have a couple weeks before a hard frost to make a space and arrange some lights. It'll be 7 or 8 months from first hard frost expected any week now, to the last frost in spring sometime in May. It's a challenge growing for that length of time indoors, but we really enjoyed sharing a fresh homegrown tomato on Christmas Day and if they survive through to spring I'm about guaranteed a good harvest all summer.

-Ed

[carolyn137]

Is there anyplace in the world where tomatoes never stop growing?

*****

Yes, in the highlands of Chile and Peru in South America where our now about 14/15 species of tomatoes originated from. They are truly long lived perennials in those areas.

Of course by taking cuttings one can perpetuate a variety for almost ever, but that's not quite the same.

And in the greenhouse of Charlie, my farmer friend who was so helpful when I was still growing hundreds of plants and varieties each year, there was a cherry tomato plant in a HUGE pot at the end of one greenhouse that grew for as many years as I was going to his farm, at least 10 years and probably more if I think back and try to reconstruct the situation.

[lakelady]

Wow, I wonder what it would be like to have tomatoes just growing outside all the time, pretty neat! The monster tomato "bush" in the greenhouse sounds amazing, did it bear fruit all year long or did it go in cycles?

I'd love to have a perpetual plant like that in the house.

[lakelady]

Ed, my growing season in Zone 6 is supposedly 6 months from first frost in Fall to last frost in Spring. I never wait until May 15th though, and usually plant out the week before that. So, it is a good long time I'll be waiting for tomato season again. I've always wanted a greenhouse, but I'd want one that I could have solar powered so I could have some heat too....that will not happen for a long time....I've got 4 years of college to pay for now for my older son. Nice to dream though!

[vegomatic]

I have a GH for many reasons other than extending the season. Firstly, deer and critters can't enter and it's screened to keep out bugs, though pesky flea beetles have taken up residence inside, so you can't win 'em all!

We can have a surprise frost most any month, even June and July. Then there's hail and wind and torrential downpours that I merely watch from the window instead of fretting over.

In zone 6 you could just take your wintered indoor survivors out into the sun come spring to get hardened off and plant as you would normally. Even tall plants can be planted with care or do as I did and trench the lanky stem horizontally. It will root along the stem and become quite vigorous once reestablished.

I'd think an indeterminate variety would be ideal for this as they just keep making new shoots and flowers as long as they're healthy and happy. Expect this to slow during winter, but they'll still produce at a reduced rate.

My sister lives north of me just a few miles, but it's enough her temps are 5-6 degrees cooler all year. She dedicated the front bedroom of her trailer to growing toms and peppers in pots and keeps them going as long as they produce. The end wall is all windows and that is apparently enough to keep them happy. Wood heat keeps the whole place toasty.

My first gh was a smallish 11x7 feet, made from salvaged 2x4s when we redid our deck. I had a couple single pane windows and a light-framed door laying around. Drywall screws held it together, brown paint made the old wood look clean. A cheap box fan, floor heater, a couple 4' shop lights, and a roll of clear plastic later, I had a GH! I spent more on potting soil and plants than I did the gh!

The next season, we moved the frame to a side yard, doubled its size to 11x13 and covered it in a more durable corrugated plastic sheeting for around $400. That's been serving well since 2003. It finally needs new roof sheeting next season but everything else, including those 20-year-old salvaged 2x4s are doing just fine.

The way they have college expenses and obligations laid out these days, I totally understand your prioritizing dealing with that first! But a gh can be had on the cheap, if having one becomes your goal. There's a whole new learning curve involved, so any experience you can gain will help if you decie to upgrade later. And if not, you don't have a lot invested! The pieces and parts can be reused to make cold frames and in other gardening projects if you find GH'ing isn't for you.

-Ed