It's important to know how tall your tomato plant will grow because tall tomato plants become top heavy and must be staked. Stakes need to be tall enough to support the plants when they are fully grown. Tomato trees and indeterminate varieties grow the tallest.
Determinate and dwarf varieties do not grow as tall and require less staking. These cultivars are ideal for container gardens. They produce 1 inch tomatoes. Grow a single dwarf tomato plant in a 5-inch diameter container. Three dwarf tomato plants grow nicely in a 6-inch hanging planter. Some people think that the lower leaves of the tomato plants affect its fruit production because they can drain the nutrients from the tomatoes, which is why the lower leaves must be removed.
Is it true? Other reasons that you can remove the lower leaves if you want are that the lower leaves become moist which can disease that can be avoided by cutting it. Another reason is that the upper leaves get all the sunlight and lower leaves get less so at some point they might drain the sugar from the tomato and cutting them will avoid this. Fertilizing tomatoes depends on the amount of nitrogen in the soil, which means that first, you must test the soil Preferably during the fall and when the soil is dry.
If the soil is balanced or has a high amount of nitrogen, then you should use a fertilizer that has a lower amount of nitrogen and a higher amount of phosphorus. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
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It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website. Skip to content. There a few specific reasons why tomato plants grow that tall: Firstly, tomatoes have excessive nitrogen which causes so too much fertilizing will cause the tomato plants to grow so tall.
This sometimes makes for a tall tomato plant with few flowers or fruit. Of course, a lack of fruiting can be due to inadequate pollination. For more information, check out my article on how to hand pollinate tomato plants.
You can also try blossom set spray , which causes flowers to set fruit, even if pollinators are nowhere to be found. To avoid the problem of over fertilization, try using low-nitrogen fertilizers for your tomato plants.
For more information, check out my article on low-nitrogen fertilizers. This is a common problem, since indeterminate tomato varieties will grow as long as they are able to do so. Generally, this means that they will keep growing until the first frost of the season.
In an area with a long growing season, this means that some indeterminate tomato plants will reach a height of 8 feet or even taller! This makes it difficult for anyone to harvest the fruit on the top part of the plant.
It also makes it more likely that t he plant will fall over in the wind, or due to the weight of its own stem, branches, and fruit. Luckily, there are several solutions for this problem. You can use some or all of these ideas as the situation warrants.
If your tomato plants are growing too tall, then simply double the amount of space they have available to grow! Let them climb up one side and down the other side of an arbor. An arbor is a garden feature that is often used at the entrance to a garden. However, you can place an arbor anywhere in your garden and allow your tomato plant to grow up and over the structure.
This makes it much easier to harvest any fruit on the uppermost branches. For more information, check out my article on arbors. You can also let your tomato plants grow up and over an A-frame trellis. An A-frame trellis serves the same purpose as an arbor, but with a pointed top instead of a flat or arched top. For more information, check out my article on trellises. As an added bonus, you can plant shorter, shade-tolerant plants such as lettuce or spinach beneath the arbor or A-frame.
This will save space in your garden and allow your plants to help each other to grow! You can also use taller stakes instead of cages if you need more height to allow your tomato plants to grow. Remember that cages are more useful for determinate tomato plants that only grow to a height of 3 to 5 feet.
Also, remember that you will need to drive a good portion of the stake into the ground to keep it steady. Otherwise, you run the risk of the entire stake falling over due to the weight of the tomato plant. This means that you will want a foot tall stake, driven 2 feet into the ground, in order to give a tomato plant 8 feet of pole to climb.
For more information, check out my article on how to support tomato plants. Shelley has been writing and editing garden stories for 10 years, and has a Master Gardeners certificate in Oregon.
By Shelley Hoose Updated August 17, Related Articles. If your area has a short growing season, this factor is even more important. Determinate or indeterminate : Are you growing tomatoes to can? Kitchen uses : Consider how you plan to eat your tomatoes: cherry tomatoes in a salad?
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