Perennial Tomato Experiment!

[Bigmallly]

Hello, Mad Mal here with yet another wacky experiment.............
My idea is at the end of the season, I will cut down to ground level one plant each of 3 varieties of Tomato, in my case: Burgess Mammoth Wonder, Black Icicle & Black Plum.
I'll cover them with straw till next spring & see if new shoots have appeared, what have I to lose?.........bagger all......................please feel free to join me if you feel you are a member of the madhatters club..................

[VolesAteMyPeas]

I just might. My two potted tomato plants got started too late this year and haven't done much in the way of producing fruit! They're healthy though. Nothing to lose by giving them a second chance...

I can't remember the variety now though. I'll dig the old seed packet out from my archiving shoebox and let you know in due course.

[veggiechicken]

Right - you're on
Not sure what toms it'll be yet, maybe Rambling Red Stripe. I'll see what looks best at the end of the season.

[Bren In Pots]

Count me in, mine will be Black Cherry, Lemon tree and San Marzano.

I'm also saving Runner bean plants as well this year again.

[Bigmallly]

Cheers Bren, thanks for the reminder, I'll also be overwintering some runners that have grown in the tunnel......................So, that's Brassicas, Tomatoes & Runners I'll be trying so far.......I wonder if I can get away without sowing any seeds next year..............nah, didn't think so.

[veggiechicken]

I wonder if I can get away without sowing any seeds next year..............nah, didn't think so.

Not if you join the 5 a week challenge

[Bigmallly]

Not if you join the 5 a week challenge

Not a hope in hellishness.

[Thelma Sanders]

I'll have a try with one of my Ro Grande
I'll be overwintering peppers inside as usual - does that count ?

[Bigmallly]

Anything counts Thelma, even more so if it succeeds.............please don't mention budgies........

[Bren In Pots]

I'll have a try with one of my Ro Grande
I'll be overwintering peppers inside as usual - does that count ?

Thelma I'd forgotten about those, it'll be the chillis 4th winter then the 3rd one for the sweet pepper.

[solway cropper]

Until I read this mad post I didn't realize that toms are perennials. We grow them as annuals in this country because our winter temps get too low for them to survive. So, never one to walk away from a challenge I'll be bringing one plant in a large pot into the utility room over winter and wait and see what happens next spring. They need to be indeterminate to work as perennials so I'll probably use a bog-standard Alicante.
Oh, apparently perennial toms can reach the size of small trees, good luck!

[solanaceae]

I did something similar, though not the same, last year with some micro tom plants.
I was a gardening novice (still am) and thought I would be able to sow some seeds at the end of July and be able to expect a crop from them.

Well... blight came along in September and so I took them in at that point, placed them on the kitchen windowsill and kept them in. They must have been about 2 or 3 inches tall at this point. Over winter they kept growing taller, but of course with no flowers. When May came, I put a few plants in a big tub outside and they soon flourished. Thanks to the amount of stems they had grown they were able to set many more trusses than any plants I started from seed this year. They ended up growing about 6 ft with hundreds and hundreds of toms. Not sure if a micro tom would have been able to grow that well in one season alone.

It'll be interesting to see how this goes.

[arpoet]

Yea... I'm in... Got half a dozen garden pearl (bush) plants still producing well in the cold greenhouse.
I will cut am down and store them in my warmer polycarb greenhouse under the bench. I have a super hos muck heap right behind the greenhouse so I hope the heat will seep in.

[Jay22]

Only growing tumbling toms so I don't think I can join in with this one as I think they are determinate?!

[brownfingers]

Wouldn't the nutrints in the pot become depleted? Or the plant may get rootbound. When I clear my toms out of their pots when they've finished, the pot is filled with just roots and not much actual compost left.

Last year I tried a little experiment. I took some late sideshoots off a Shirley and potted them up. I kept them in the house. Every time the plants got a bit too big, I took new smaller sideshoots and potted them on, throwing the bigger palnt away. I only just failed to keep it going long enough for the plants to be relocated out to the GH.