Well, SOJ, it's taking too long, so I had better answer your request now. My partner went out to the lotty today to finish the toms and do a few other things. She didn't have much time to take many piccies, so I shall try and make do with what I've got. Ok? Well here goes then... "Drastic Suckering"-- I like to be totally ruthless when it comes to suckering. Ruthless with but one exception: I leave a "King Sucker". That is one of the very first suckers to form once the plantlet has been planted where it will grow. They will be seen down close to the ground. I do not just any sucker, I choose the largest one there. I almost get the idea that the plants want to have two main stems sometimes. hahaha. On the type of cordon toms that I grow, this larger sucker is always obvious. If there is not one apparent, then I do not leave any sucker at all on that plant. I pluck the suckers out when I see them and they are long enough to grasp. I check every day and manage to find them very frequently. I cannot emphasize how important suckering is. They take an enormous amount of energy away from the bossoms and fruits. Be diligent and thorough. You do not sucker bush toms. I just let them grow and grow. The more stems, the more blossoms and fruit. "Defoliating": I figure that defoliating is necessary because after a certain point the leaf production and growth takes away too much from the blossom development and fruit growth. I do not remove all the leaves at once. And I do not begin with defoliating immediately. I begin defoliating when the plants are more or less 3 feet high (in my case, a bit less than ½ of what their total height will be). I believe that three feet is a good time to begin because the plant has had free rein to develop itself unimpeded, and it should be good and strong. Now the thing is that when you defoliate correctly, a scarey amount of foliage is removed, and the plant will of course feel it, so what I do is that I plan the leaf and stem removal for a day when I was going to feed and water the plants anyway. So when all is clipped and composted, water and feed those plants thoroughly. I defoliate bush toms too. "Tying-in": I tie-in the cordon tomatos regularly. One must also remove or loosen old ties so that with the stem growing in diameter, the string doesn't cut into it. Before I go further, let me say a word about ties. I believe that strips of old cotton clothing material is the best. I do not use shreds simply because I do not have any, so I use a type of hemp-like twine(not extremely thin). Bare wire or even coated wire is not safe to tie-in your toms, Same goes for plastic, in my opinion. Now, to continue--I try and tie below a leaf stem so that it can aid in support in such a way that the tie will not slip up the stalk(stem). The technique that I use is to first loop the twine around the tom's stalk, loosely twist the twine 2-3 times then wrap the twine around the support stick twice and tie a bow. My partner does it just the opposite. I tie a bow so that I do not have to cut the twine later when I remove or adjust it. There is no set distance between ties, I feel--I make one when I see where and when it is necessary. Support is very important, you do not want the cordons to slip or fall over. That would not be good. Another method of tying-in, and as many say--the best is to secure a sturdy length of twine up high and spiral the twine around the stalk of the tom all the way to the ground where you secure it with a tent peg, for instance. I have done it this way before and it works perfectly. The tom supports itself on the twine and there can never be a cutting-through from too tight a tie-in. I do not tie-in the bush tomatos, I "contain" them. They have a bushy habitus and there isn't a really simple method to do it. I do however support the great, heavy fruits with little "hammocks", as it were. Here you can see the how the cordon-type toms were tied-in as well as defoliated. This is the technique my partner used for tying-in. The bush toms are "contained" here, rather than tied-in. The leaves on the ground between the plants and the glass is a comfry mulch. Perhaps you can see the defoliation and containment twine a bit better here. When it was suckered, defoliated and tied-in, marigolds were planted and everything was thoroughly watered.
Very nice Sjoerd,,,"applaud, applaud, applaud" And very instructional. Those sure do look so healthy. IF mine make it, i will remember about leaving the main sucker,, in yrs past in america i always took all of them off. I used to defoliate also, and it does make a huge difference in the fruit volumne. I didn't get to a few plants one yr, and the difference in plants was the ones that i defoliated had twice the harvest than the few i didn't make it to. Well done!
Thanks Biita... very much. The `King Sucker` thing I have only been doing for a few years now, because I too used to remove everything, but when I noticed that there was seemingly always one sucker so much larger than the rest, I thought `why not leave it and see`, which went against all conventional knowledge. I get quite a bit more harvest with them...and what with the canning, eating and the feeding of family--I NEED extra toms.
Wow! Such knowledge. If you don't mind Sjoerd, I think I'll save that little lession for later. One day I will have toms and other veges growing in my garden and that is some very useful info especially to a complete amature like me. I guarentee one day I will come back to this post (actually I'll probaly save it so I know where it'll be). Thanks so much for posting this.
Wow, 'T' and Mizz 'gater...I am really overwhelmed by your reactions. I'm pretty thrilled that the info is useful to you. I guess that's what this great Forum is all about. Cor!...I have to digest this, it really caught me by surprize. You guys are quite welcome indeed.
I thought I knew a lot about growing tomatoes but after reading your superb post I realise I'm just a beginner. Thanks Sjoerd. I'm saving your post for future reference too.
