Can a plant with fruit be transplanted?

[kelleyville]

I am between a rock and a hard place here. My maters are huge and full of fruit and some of them ten feet tall or more. We are probably going to move...unexpectedly...tired of the bull from the lease purchase deal we have...what is the liklihood if any of me transplanting these tomatoes and moving them?

They are so tangled now that I know I would have stem breakage, but if I prune, and carefully detangle and top them would they make it being transplanted to five gallon buckets?

Second question...if they made it in five gallon buckets should I leave them there or put them back in the ground?

This is really messed up! Wish it could have waiting another couple of months!

The move will give me way less house and way more garden room so I am half depressed and half excited! The property has a well so no drought problems! This means I could buy the greenhouse that was too big for here!

If possible I would sure like to keep at least as much of the plants that has already fruited!

Thanks for answering yet another dumb question for me!

Kelley

[dice]

I would have to say, "too big". Whether you put
them in buckets or in the ground, they are likely
to keel over and die from the heat within a week.

If you must try, cut them down to about 3' high
first, leaving a few shortened side branches with
some fresh side shoots just starting. Dig them up,
soak the root ball in liquid fertilizer solution for
about 5 minutes, put them in buckets, and go.
Water heavily and mist the foliage once they get
into the ground at the new location. If you have
some floating row cover, put that over the transplants
for a few days to protect them from direct sunlight.

As hot as it gets in your climate, any that survive
will grow back and start setting set fruit again
before the end of the season. You could have a
nice fall crop.

Leaving them in the buckets is probably not a
good idea, but since you probably won't have
ground prepared yet at the new place, you may
not have a choice about that. If they stay in
the buckets, you will end up having to fertilize
often and water once or twice a day.

If your husband isn't up for a major project right
away at the new place, but you want to get the
tomatoes into the ground, just give each one it's
own little ad hoc raised bed: set the root ball on
the ground, pile dirt and any composty-looking
stuff (piles of leaves, etc) around the place around
the root ball, and make a little berm around the top
of the pile to hold water there, as if you were transplanting
a shrub or tree. Fertilize and water it in good, they
should take off.

Don't skip the initial root ball soak in fertilizer solution
when you dig them up (MG works for this, so would
many similar water-soluble fertilizers). That makes all
of the difference in the world as to how they do in the
next two weeks.

You could drop a foot or so of the tops of the one's
that you have to cut back into jars of water, let
them root, and replant the cuttings, too. This sets
you back weeks, but the tops root out pretty fast,
and they will start setting fruit sooner than transplants
grown from seed that are the same size. You can
replace any that die after moving them with the rooted
cuttings.

[kelleyville]

Thanks for your thoughts! I will definiately do the root soak. A couple of weeks ago when I decided my tomato bed was too crowded and we first started talking about maybe moving I pulled one of my Roma's out. Of course it was only about 3 feet and had no fruit on it. I just put it in a nice pot of dirt burying a bit more of the stem and watered it and misted it and kept it in the shade of the bean arbor. It rewarded me greatly with very little wilt.

I have done the same with the rest of teh smaller roma's today and hope they do as well. The last two roma's are way too tall and full of fruit for me to attempt to even move without help-maybe with the extra sun from removing the others the fruit will ripen faster!

I will be crying in my beer over these tomatoes! LOL As much time as I spend outside I am not sure why leaving the inside of this house is bothering me!

Kelley

[dice]

I bet the new place has interesting stuff that
you haven't noticed yet.

[kelleyville]

Well we are going to see the inside in just a few minutes! And walk the property! It is so tiny I don't know how I could miss anything I know my kitchen stuff wont half fit in there but I can deal with it for say two years and then we can add on! The main thing is the space for gardening of all kinds and a green house! The thought of whacking down these tomato plants is making me queasy

[strax]

if you leave the plants there, you could still come back and visit them and pick the fruit. I believe that in many places, the current year's harvest belongs to the farmer who planted it, even if posses ion of the land has changed hands.

jake

[kelleyville]

Now thats an idea but who would water the plants? Still looking and planning. the house was liveable, the land great but the "landlord" is really after cash so we are bottom of the waiting list to get the place. Old house with a new face-one of those where you wonder who carved out these rooms and why did they do it this way LOL! Still and all I was looking to see where to put raised bed garden, greenhouse and planning where some of my perrennials would fit in nicely! Fingers crossed-I can live in the house even make it cute just want to be done with this!

Kelley

[Warren]

I did this a few weeks ago. I moved 7 plants cause I planted them to close together. If you move them they will wilt very bad. the Fruit will still turn red but they will not be as good as others.

Maybe if you got a very bill root ball for each plant it might work.

[kelleyville]

What type of plants did you move? So far the potted Romas did not wilt at all and only two fruit fell when moving them. I am babying them in partial shade though. Next up is the very back Big Beef Hybrid. It is the smallest of all of them and so very light green from lack of sun that It is the best choice for moving. Not as large as the the others!