My armpits have armpits!

[Sylvan]

Some of my January sown tomatoes have been neglected for a while. When I was repotting them this evening I found some extremely large sideshoots - with tiny sideshoots starting to grow between them and the main stem.

[taff]

are they bush or cordon ones? the former, don't worry, the latter, take them off

[Sylvan]

I took them off and put them in water. I don't actually need more plants of that variety but I'm practising for when the important ones (like Black Cherry, Green Sausage, Yellow Pear...) finally grow armpits - hoping I'll be an expert by then

[Potstubsdustbins]

Sylvan,
This might help.

colin

[Sylvan]

Do they have to be that long Colin?

Most of mine are much smaller.

[Jelliebabe]

Hey Sylvan - You need to join in with the "Armpit challenge" to see how many tomato plants you can get from one seed. The parent plant is numbered one, then the armpits of that are 234 etc then the armpits of that 567 etc etc etc the person who can do the most wins.... respect? search armpit challenge !!!

You're doing well my originals are only just budding in the underarm area!

[chris]

Same here! Not even in my final pots yet!

[grenhouse]

I finally 'caned' my january sown toms up in the greenhouse yesterday. They have been in their final pots for about 3 weeks now. Each has 3 sets of flowers in are about 3 1/2ft. Have some armpits in water but haven't numbered them really. I did 6 January sown and think upto now that it is well worth it! I now have 6 that are starting to set fruit and the rest are about a foot high so will come later :-)

steve

[Sylvan]

I thought I'd use some of my more unusual/expensive toms for the armpit challenge, since I don't have much room in the garden this year and I already have 14 Principe Borghese and 9 San Marzano. (Only one each of the fancy-schmancy ones...)

Mine won't go into their final pots till the beginning of June, since I wouldn't have the space to fit them all in the kitchen otherwise. The poor old bitch says trying to find space to sleep comfortably between all those 3 litre pots is bad enough. (Grumpy's convinced we'll go down one morning to find they've eaten her)

[Potstubsdustbins]

Sylvan,

No they don't have to be that big. The one pictured was off a tumbler and I wanted to see what would happen to one with flowers already on the armpit. So far so good I have now been thinking I might just put a drop of feed into the water just to see what happens.

Colin

[Davyburns]

I am pretty vigilant when it comes to taking sideshoots off, but theres always a couple that get by. If they have flowered, I just leave them on, thinking, If the plant has spent resources on that flower, may as well leave them, and it worked pretty much ok last year.

I have a Shirley that started with a tinge of orange last week, but has gone no further. I was hoping to get my first tom this week