centiflor tomatoes

[jacob]

I'm growing some of these guys (the mille fleur ones):

Vegetable Seeds : Centiflor Tomato Seed

I'm a bit confooosed. They are vines, so I guess I want to pinch out side shoots. Fine. But how many of the huge hands should I go for? I'm quite surprised that so far I can't distinguish this from the gardeners delight next door. The first hand is just about to flower, but I can see the second forming two joints above. I can't pinch a vine out at 18 inches tall in June!

[Tomatoking]

I think they are a bush type, so leave all the shoots on.

Found the info here

BBC - Gardeners' World Blog - Alys Fowler: Tomato Love

Mr TK

[jacob]

Oh great! Realseeds (who supplied the seeds) say vine. Alys says bush. I've pinched out most of the side shoots already, so maybe too late to change my mind. I'm more worried about how many trusses to allow, given that reals tells me to expect "hundreds of translucent yellow tomatoes on a single truss."

[zazen999]

Jacob; I think you will be fine. Just leave it be. It will produce many many fruit anyway - they really are a great little tomato.

[jacob]

Just leave it be.

I like that very simple advice!

Thanks both.

[Tomatoking]

By the size of the bunches I saw when doing the search, I hardly think they need them on the side shoots as well. Like zazen said I am sure it will be fine, but will be interested to know how many toms you get on a bunch.
I will have to try some next year.

[rogesse]

I've grown these as cordon tomatoes for the last three years (seeds also from real seeds) both inside the GC and outside and allow 3 - 4 bunches of tomatoes per plant. I've always ended up with far more than our family of 3 can eat fresh from 4 plants and kept my friends and neighbours well supplied. Last year I had so many I went to the extravagance of using half to make yellow tomato puree (sunshine yellow tomato soup is delicious)

The bunches really do become enormous and have needed some support but I'm at a loss as to how this variety would work as a bush given the weight of the bunches of tomatoes.

I'm pretty lazy about pinching out and wait until side shoots become about 3" long - then I pinch them out, pop then in a jar of water for about a week or so until they form roots, then pot them up - voila new plants for free!

[schw]

I've got three Millefleur and have noticed that two of them seem "bush" and one "vine"! The sideshoots on one are more slender and slower growing, while the other two grow stocky new branches overnight. I am pinching out the one and leaving the other two be - at the end of the season I'll see which I feel like saving seed from.

[Lazgaot]

I grew some of these last year indoors and out on the allotment. I pinched out all of the side shoots of the ones in the greenhouse and pinched them out when they hit the top of the glass.

I couldn't keep up with the 3 I planed outside and they were exceptionally vigorous! I decided to let them grow in to a bush and tried to build a framework to support the plant. Each plant produced literally a bucket load of fruit. If not more!

I took a few photos of the ones indoors here in my photostream. I saved tons of seeds to plant in future.