This video show how much fruit is produced by tomato suckers. Years ago we use to sucker our tomato plants and one year we forgot to do it. We discovered tha…
Question by elmo: What will bleach do to tomato plants?
I bought tomato plants at wal mart and took home. i thought my bf was using a water bottle with water to spray on it. turns out it was bleach. i sprayed the stems and everything. if i plant these is it harmful, bc their not dying? not sure if safe to eat.
Best answer:
Answer by sciencegravy
If they don’t die, they’ll be fine by the time they produce fruit. But if the belach was a high enough concentration, it will kill them.
There is no reason to spray a tomato plant with water. Water the SOIL, not the plant.
Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!
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After 36 years of single stem I think you convinced me try letting suckers
grow. Always liked to brag how tall my tomatoes were.lol See Ya
So how far out will you keep that stem? Will you take it us as far as you
can, or just keep it in an upright position? You will still use the panty
hose method right?
Nice looking plants, I think I need to do a road trip! LOL
I do like mojoe does and take most of them but leave 1 or 2 if they are
mature enough to make it to season, otherwise I get better production in a
short season by suckering.
Did you grow your plants or buy them? Are the plants the same kind? Do they
both get at least 6 hours of sun?Were the stems the same size on each when
planted? How much of the plant was put under the soil? There are many
reasons but my guess is: The soil holds water close to the surface a lot
better than raise beds. Moisture dries out faster in raised beds and the
moisture level in the soil and the raise beds are at the same level because
the water reaches its own level.
I measured two of my biggest last season when I pulled them out of the
garden and they were 14′ long. I showed it in a video. If you have good
soil and roots the plant can support all of the extra tomatoes it will
grow. It does not work if you grow them in a container or large pots.
Half of our tomatoes are determinate this year. We usually plant all
indertminate tomatoes but my bride wanted some Romas and my 1988 Rutger
seeds came up so I had to plant some to see if they would produce a lot of
good tomatoes. We usually grow about 40 plants but this year we have 52 and
I was going to plant less this year. Go figure!
As always,, wise lessons for us newbie gardeners! TY Pa!
I’m trying it both ways up here in the north this year. I think generally
people do it up here just to make sure the tomatoes that did come one ripen
before the fall-chill. The small tomatoes like cherry, plum or grape ripen
pretty fast but I think people worry about those big beef or other large
varieties that can take forever to ripen. Like I said though, this year I’m
experamenting both ways to see what happens. If anything we deep fry the
green tomatoes anyway.
I am preaching to the choir with you. Air circulation is an important part
of growing nice tomatoes. You have to keep the plants off the ground.
Thanks for your comment!
Did you tie it close to the pole, or out from the pole, and leave it loose?
Nancy: By the end of the season the top of the plants will touch each other
and they are planted about 3′ apart and the rows are 3′ apart. The amount
of fruit harvested is greater with cherry tomatoes and salad size tomatoes
and is only two to three times as many on regular tomatoes. Thanks for
watching!
Suckering your plants makes sense if you are using the square foot
gardening method and don’t have a lot of land to work with. I wouldn’t
sucker a cherry tomato that just doesn’t make sense but single stemming
regular tomatoes can yield a lot of plants in a tight space.
You have to have really good soil to support the plants with all of the
extra production. MY plants also have between 16 and 18″ of roots in the
soil which makes a BIG difference. Good soil, Good seeds, Lots of roots
make lots of fruit.
Always wondered about this – questioned it — thank you for the answer! I
took out one sucker today – I’m going to quit that right now!
Things are different up north when growing vegetables. We have a 7 month
growing season here in central Virginia and our plants are usually starting
to die by the time of the first frost. We had an early frost last fall and
I had over 1000 tomatoes still on my 42 plants when I pulled them. You can
see them on a video I did laying on the ground and hanging on the vines.
When u see how slowly the to.atoes develop and hiw they font get as big as
they should u will know ehy u should have removed them.. suckers can be
planted as well so whats the issue???
Shelia: The stem in the video leaning to the left at the bottom was tied to
the stake after the video. All the the stems on the plant grow to as high
as they can grow before the first frost. You can cut off the top growth
that have tomatoes that will not grow big enough before the first frost so
that the lower ones can ripen quicker. They have to do this up north
because of their shorter growing season. In warmer climate like ours the
plants are naturally dying by first frost.
i don’t trim suckers or trellis my tomato’s
The tomato stems are very thin.my tomato plants that I have in raised bed
have lots of compost and rich are very thin stem . My tomato plants in the
ground with no compost have very thick stem why
i usually let 2 or 3 suckers go my plants and never noticed any difference
in the size of the tomatoes from the ones i suckered completely. i’m
letting one of my plants go this year to compare. what about air
circulation & disease?
If you do not sucker your plants they do need more space. 3 foot between
rows and plants is minimum for good air circulation. We started at our home
garden with 516 square feet of raised beds about 40 years ago and use this
method and grew plants higher than 14 feet. I get between 300 to 500 cherry
tomatoes per plant, 35 better Boys and about 100 to 125 salad tomatoes
using this method. Thanks for commenting.
Jerry: I have stuck a many of them in the soil and they just want to grow.
You just have to water them for the first 4 or 5 days to help them get some
roots going.
Great video & info!
Funny. I never suckered tomatoes ever. Didn’t know it was a common
practice…like you said, makes no sense at all.