Perennial Tomato Experiment!

[BertieFox]

You rotter! Now you've got me caught up in this mad idea.

First I have to eat humble pie and admit that tomatoes are SHORT LIVED perennials and not annuals, but the crazy idea of coddling them through winter into the spring months has some kind of bizarre appeal.

I have a variety of large orange cherry tomato called 'Naranjito' that is an F1 and was disgustingly expensive to buy, for eight seeds or so. I am absolutely determined now to keep this going (though I am also doing an experiment with saved seeds to see what the F2 generation will be like and to select from those).

So I have just taken a half dozen of the last side shoots and potted them up in a vermiculite and compost mix, with a little bottom heat in my propagator. I am misting the leaves to give them even more of a chance of rooting at this late stage in the season.

I see someone said that they tend to get very leggy out of season, but I may supplement the lighting and see how they fare. In any case, it will be good to 'cheat' the seed company out of having to buy new expensive seed if they make it through the winter months.

[Snadger]

When you have all kept the toms going into the THIRD summer season then I might sit up and take notice!

[veggiechicken]

Who says we haven't?

[Snadger]

Who says we haven't?

Yeah, right!

[veggiechicken]

You wouldn't believe me anyway - so there's no point in telling you

[Snadger]

True, true, so very true!

[Bren In Pots]

Sorry Snadge but I see nothing costly by covering plants with a mulch/fleece/newspaper etc.

My spare plant's been growing on the kitchen window sill so today after picking the last few toms I've cut it down, covered it with shredded paper and some fleece then popped another flower bucket on the top. I'll let you know next year if it survives.
Plus I've put a couple of armpits in water to root then pot on.
I love experiments.

[solanaceae]

I shall try and join this experiment with you folks.

Won't be bringing any plants inside, cutting them back or covering them with anything. I'm just going to let them continue growing as they are in the garden exposed to the elements and whatever comes their way. They are still producing good sized, on the whole good quality toms at the moment. To still be doing that at this stage of the season is a first for me. Blight and frost impacts have been minimal, usually one or the other has killed all the plants by now.

I have a funny feeling that if this upcoming winter for London is as mild as last year's then they'll have no problem in surviving and growing the whole year round. Let's see how it goes.

[Penellype]

I think the success or otherwise of these experiments will probably rest on what sort of winter we have. Last winter was exceptionally mild (and wet and windy) and I think most people with a greenhouse would have managed to keep their plants alive. It is too early to tell what this winter will do, although the next week or so looks like having a good shot at a repeat of last year.

Further ahead a huge amount will depend on whether we get "northern blocking" - a high pressure system located over Greenland and/or Scandinavia, which was totally absent last year. This basically forces the wind into an easterly or northerly direction, which is always cold in winter. All long range forecasts are experimental and largely a matter of guesswork, but there is supposedly a link between cold winters and large amounts of snow in Russia during October. This year there was more snow than has ever before been seen in Russia during October, although you have to qualify that with the caveat that the measurements have only been taken (by satellite) since the late 1990s I think. The theory is that the snow cover causes high pressure to form over Russia which then migrates north over the pole into Greenland. We shall see - this is not the only factor at work, obviously, but a cold winter this year woud not greatly surprise the meteorologists for this reason.

[Bigmallly]

Well said Pene............................

[VolesAteMyPeas]

Does anyone want to tell us their results?

I took side shoots off my single plant this time of year, potted them up and kept them on a cool but sunny windowsill all winter. I pruned them back a couple of times and put them back outside in my yard in about April. The results have been amazing. They flowered from March and got ripe fruits in July. They're still going strong.

This is something I will do again this year for sure! Did anyone else have success?

[Penellype]

My overwintered plants did well at first, producing 2 trusses of decent sized fruit each. However along with this year's seedlings, all of the indoor tomatoes got red spider mite, which eventually killed them.

[VolesAteMyPeas]

Sorry to hear that

[Bren In Pots]

I overwintered some Lemon tree toms from armpits they're still producing toms so i' going to do it again this year.

[Penellype]

I've done it a few times and it has always been fine with the plants kept in the house. The spider mite was just unlucky.