Laying Tomatoes Down

[Mikey]

Last year I promised myself again that I was going to lay some tomatoes down flat so that I could get a few extra trusses on each plant. Yet again I've forgotten, but I do have some immature plants which might be trainable to do such a thing. Here's what I mean,



Basically you train it along a cane about 30-40cm and then up a cane or string whichever is your preferred method. So much of the time we have to pinch out tomatoes after 4-5 fruit trusses but it was my intention to trial a couple of different methods this year. This one and the second is to horizontal train the tip across the roof. My cordons aren't quite there yet.

Has anyone had success with this method, I've seen it done in a country house before where the plants were on seed tables so height was restricted.

[Snoop Puss]

Maybe I haven't understood. Why does doing this allow you to leave more trusses?

I've trained cherry tomato plants horizontally - or rather, I had no idea what I was doing and was just making things up as I went along so I put horizontal canes in, somewhat like an espalier system, and tied in the sideshoots to that as I didn't know you were supposed to remove them. Worked a treat with cherry tomatoes as you can pretty well let them do their own thing. Four plants in containers provided us and our neighbours in three other flats (eleven people in total) with as many as we could eat and more. Whether it works with beefsteak toms, I wouldn't like to say.

[Mikey]

The first fruit truss is normally about 30-40cm above the plant stem, by training it horizontally and cutting off the leaves upto the first fruit truss you can essentially grow an extra 30cm of plant height before you reach the roof and therefore 2-3 more fruit trusses and about 25-40% more fruit per plant.

You can train two plants side by side to swap canes which would give you the same effect of added height but without any more space needed.

[Thelma Sanders]

In the big commercial greenhouses in Kent, they let the first few trusses form and get picked then they lay them down and tie them back in, repeat for the season. It works for them

Thanet Earth

[Mikey]

That is nuts Thelma, they look like triffids. Really clever though, I wonder how they pollinate them?

[Thelma Sanders]

They have hives for bees
http://discoverthanetearth.co.uk/cms...sheet-bees.pdf