First tomato fruit!
It’s here! The first little green nubbin’ of a tomato. Actually, there were two, and I couldn’t resist picking one and taking a bite. It was bitter. What can I say, I’m tactile-kinesthetic. And orally fixated.
I have both determinate (bush-type) and indeterminate (viney-type) tomatoes. This season, my first in this garden, I’m experimenting with the indeterminate type. (What’s the difference?)
Steve Solomon says in his book “Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades” that you can grow indeterminate vines that are 8 feet or more in length, trailing up an over a tall trellis or support system. To do this, I’m following his suggestion to trim off all but two (I’m doing three) main leader vines on this plant. It is the one pictured, the first to produce fruit. Not sure if the first fruit is because of the method of snipping all but 3 leader vines, or if it’s the variety (yellow pear).
I’ll do a subsequent post that shows my vine support system — an “A” frame support and twine.
My goal is to get these vines 7-8 feet long, to go up and over my trellis support. Has anybody had similar luck getting long, productive indeterminate tomato varieties?
2 responses so far ↓
flyingtomato // July 17, 2008 at 1:43 pm
You should not have any problem getting your yellow pear to grow that tall–even if you don’t trim it.
I’ve grown yellow and now red pear, and they are wildly enthusiastic in the garden. They’ll likely give you lost of “volunteers” for next year.
boltinglettuce // July 17, 2008 at 4:30 pm
Glad to hear how well it grows. It’s fun to experiment, though, since I know no matter what I do I’ll have way more tomatoes than we can eat.