Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Chilli that comment made my day.

Thank God that boiling water didn’t splash down on those toes….

That's true dasboot. The TMW (Toe Modelling World) would have been in an uproar.

Hahaha
Have you ever seen "Magnum" or "Blue steel" done with toes? You WISH

Good job Charlie!
One note, don't wind the string around the vines, just buy some clips (they are super cheap). As the vines get larger, the string doesn't allow for the growth and can cut into the vine. I know youre moving soon so not as important on this crop but just for future crops

Not your toes Ryan! That sandal shot still gives me nightmares.

Cheers Ryan, good point and I have noticed this problem recently. Seems to strangle the plant eventually.

Hey Charlie, (and Ryan) how do you trim prune your tomatoes?

Mine are growing like rampant blackberries, its a bloody tomato forest out there, should i be pruning them back to stems and only producing branches?
Does heavy pruning stimulate more crop?

Thanks Fella's

I'm here to please

I'm interested in the answer to this too.
Mine are a bit bushy but have a heap of toms on them

Im still learning and Ryan might be best to answer but Ill give you my process anyway to get you rolling.

Inderterminate varieties are best for this application. As the seedling grows there will be branches that form on the sides of the main stem (these just have the leaves), in time a 'sucker' will form in the arm pit of the branch and stem, this needs to be either plucked or cut off otherwise it will grow another stem. In my media beds I let the very first 'sucker' grow to form another stem so I have two main stems. In my DWC its easier to manage one main stem.

As the stems grow, more branches and more suckers appear. Keep plucking out the suckers through the life of the plant and this will keep the one stem and put all the plant energy into it and the fruit sets. The reason tomato plants go bushy is because every stem will grow more stems and more stems etc etc. You lose a lot of plant energy this way.

Suckers can also be replanted to grow more tomato plants. I usually only get a few tomato plants going and then keep robbing the suckers and your crop quickly multiplies. The little hairs you see on the stem of the suckers turn into roots, just plant them deep up to the first set of leaves.

Other than that you can get quite aggressive with tomatoes, you can cut off the branches and you can also chop the branch in half to leave a little folige if you like. Cutting off branches I believe is to assist in air flow which assist mitigating against early blight etc

Hope that helps.

Amateur question but would this also apply to cherrie tomatoes? I have a very 'feral' cherry tom 'bush' I can't even reach in to some of the fruits it's so thick


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If you know the variety you can google it and decipher whether its a determinate or indeterminate. Determinate grow to a determined height and opposite for the latter. Both can be pruned this way but obviously the height of a determinate variety will only produce small amounts of fruit so maybe its usually best left to grow crazy unless you grow multiple plants, obviously this isnt always the best option for valuable AP bed space so I grow my cherry varieties in the dirt garden.

Like this one..











Also here is what a 'sucker' looks like after replanted and roots form, great way to save a dollar..

Thanks for that Charlie.
I normally pluck the suckers off but only found out today that they can be replanted.
I wasn't sure whether or not to cut the branches off as well as the sucker.

Cheers
Rob

Glad to help, yea Ive hacked the crap out of some of mine Rob and they seem to love it. Its actually quite enjoyable to experiment if you havnt done it before. Ryan or someone else skilled in this area might be able to fine tune my post because I just taught myself from watching things on the internet.

Ive also learnt that you shouldnt use AP water and thrive in wicking buckets as the nitrogen overload pretty much fry's your plants. Bottom end rot, burnt leaves etc etc. You can get away with it in a garden but not in a bucket lol

I also trim away the side branches that are below any bearing clusters of fruit. When a cluster has been harvested then the branches up to the next one that has fruit can be removed. If you live in a nice climate with a nice long season that will become long single vines then you can do that thing I've seen on here where you lower them down so they don't go to the roof. I also rooted suckers before, just shoved one into a net pot in the AP system and away it went, super easy.

Determinate means you can get one great big harvest like for canning tomato sauce, indeterminate means it will dribble out tomatoes not all at once but continuously. Until I make tomato sauce I'll probably always use indeterminate ones because that fits my lifestyle :-)