Tomato Spacing
Forum Archives
sparklemama
Location: Western Washington
Posted: Jun-08-2004 at 10:24am
hi all..just a quick question on tomatoes for ya. i was wondering what is the closet that you can plant tomoatoes together. i have ten plants and a 4ftx10ft long bed. i have two early girls, two golden nuggets, four romas, and two northern delights. i was hoping since it was a raised bed that i would be able to get away with planting them closer together. thanks for your help guys! have a super wonderful day in the garden! jenn
Gardening is the only therapy I can afford.
Bill N
Location: Oregon, Willamette Valley
Posted: Jun-08-2004 at 12:21pm
Hi Jenn,
I grow my tomatoes that close. I do prune the indeterminates some, but not the determinates. My rule of thumb is ~4 sqft per plant. It's important to support them in some way or it will be a big mess.
Bill
Corvallis
gary
Location: Washington, Puget Sound Corridor
Posted: Jun-08-2004 at 1:00pm
Spark,
You don't say which direction the bed runs but the Early Girls are your only indeterminate so be sure that they are on the north(east) side of the bed. That way they do not shade other plants.
I formerly used 2x2 spacing too but now I am only growing 9 plants in a 4x14 bed so that is 2x3 spacing. This is because only 3 of the nine are determinates (& large ones at that). The bed runs E/W so there are 5 Ind. on the northside and one in the SE corner. The three det.'s are SW to center of the front row. The 5 in the back also allows me to plant the four in front in the gaps so some sun can get to the back plants at noontime. The Ind.'s are pruned to two stems wound up twine to a 7' overhead bar.
Why all the worry about sunlight? Trees only give me 6 hours of sunlight so the plants are also on the east side on the garden so more of that sun is pm sun.
The best description on tomato pruning I have ever seen is from Kitchen Gardener magazine but fortunately this one is still available online at:
Pruning Tomatoes
Bill is correct on the low need for determinate pruning but you'll see this author likes to take off the lower branches to help avoid deseases. A good thought in our area. Solomon mentions reducing the fruit clusters on Det.'s just like I need to reduce the apple load on my tree this week.
The author also comments on support and spacing in the article.
Gary
Olympia Sunset Zone 5, USDA Zone 8
Bill N
Location: Oregon, Willamette Valley
Posted: Jun-08-2004 at 1:20pm
Hi Gary, I only discovered that article a few months ago and have pruned out those lower branches on the det. The Missouri Prune was a new one on me. I've been experimenting with pruning ind for a number of years and it usually is driven by spacing and location in the garden as you pointed out. I'm trying the four stems approach this year, I've even had very good luck using just one stem, good ripening and earlier, larger tomatoes. Is that Solomon's method you are using? How does that work?
Bill
gary
Location: Washington, Puget Sound Corridor
Posted: Jun-08-2004 at 6:14pm
Bill,
Yes, my indeterminate frame is based upon Steve's and others verticle stringing technique. Though my frame design was based upon the scrap lumber available about 6 years ago when a friend and I built structures for us, relatives, and friends with only two NEW 8' 2x4's.
My 4x14' bed has what looks like a almost 8 foot tall, 13 foot long sawhorse with a 3 foot wide rectangle seven feet above the bed to tie the strings to. This also gives me an overhead structure for a plastic roof and south (windward) side curtain to keep the plants drier against late blight when rain is in the forecast.
For those who do not know what Bill means by Solomon's string method, take a look a a couple of the pictures of Trav's hoop house. You'll see that there are these 2x4 supports above the tomatoes that, as one has asked in the past, seem to be holding up the hoop house. Instead they are the structure for the strings that the tomatoes are climbing.
Gary
Olympia Sunset Zone 5, USDA Zone 8
growsherown
Location: Olympic Peninsula
Posted: Jun-09-2004 at 7:52am
I have always practiced the pinching of suckers on my tomatoes, if for nothing else, to let the sun ripen the friuts and get better air circulation. But until this year, I have olny grown the early girls, and a few misc cherry tomatoes and yellow pear. This year, I have added 5 det Romas to the group, and am anxious to see what comes of that!
sparklemama
Location: Western Washington
Posted: Jun-09-2004 at 10:23am
wow thanks gary and bill for all that great info. i also have steves book and read what he wrote about tomatoes. Just wanted to see what the rest of you thought. i sure like the idea of having the interd. ones climb. My beds run north to south. I had already planted them the other day and I have the early girls together at the north end with the two nothern delights behind and then the four romas behind there and then the two golden nuggest behind them at the southern end. they are all about a foot or more apart each way.
sooooo can i move them around so the Ind.'s are together and the Dets' are together or should i let them be and remeber for next year? Def going to see about letting the inderterminate ones climb though. Thanks guys! Jenn
Gardening is the only therapy I can afford.
gary
Location: Washington, Puget Sound Corridor
Posted: Jun-09-2004 at 11:47am
Jenn,
I'd justleave them. All your varieties are in the TSC catalog I think? There Roma is a mini. The Gold Nugget that they sell could be described as a semi-determinate and if that is what you have, I would expect to be the 2nd tallest plant. Their Northern Delight is also a low growing plant.
For next year, in another bed to rotate your crops, try Trav's and my favorite 'roma-style', Oroma. TSC describes it as, "The 1 1/4 inch wide by 5 inch long fruit average about 4 ounces". And it is a lot more prolific than any Roma I've seen. I also like an indeterminate plum tomato called Super Marzano which is in TSC's catalog now. This sets clusters of large tomatoes every 15" up each of my two stems so I can harvest some each week instead of the onceover harvest with most determinate sauce tomatoes.
Trav has a list on his site on his favorite tomatoes and I agree with all of them but I keep wanting to try more each year. You can view his list at:
Trav's favorite PNW tomatoes
I am growing two, Large Red Cherry & Persimmon, for the first time and both being on Trav's list last year only added to the good things I had heard about them.
My other new variety this year is Burpee's Brandy Boy which Chris Smith (of the Sea PI and Brem Sun columns) recommended last year. It also won 2nd place in TSC's Tomato Taste-off in 2003.
Gary
Olympia Sunset Zone 5, USDA Zone 8
Bill N
Location: Oregon, Willamette Valley
Posted: Jun-09-2004 at 3:26pm
Hi Gary, Thanks for posting about the Oroma. I planted them this year instead of the Romas that I've grown in the past and was wondering if they would be as productive (they sure have a ton of fruit on already). Last year, even with the hot summer we had, a lot of the Romas were rotted or green at the end of the season.
When reading those catalogs and the trials at OSU "very productive" or "7 on a scale of 9" leave me scratching my head - compared to what? Especially when the the yield is rated for the size of the plant.
I want to know how many plants I need for x jars of tomato sauce. :)
I was also considering growing Super Marzano and I'm happy to hear that you like them. Next year for me.
Bill
Corvallis
gary
Location: Washington, Puget Sound Corridor
Posted: Jun-09-2004 at 6:42pm
Bill,
I think that I tried Oroma the first time TSC put it in their catalog. Tomato Growers got me onto Super Marzano while a friend and I were trying to figure what variety we were growing from seeds saved out of some plum (Yakima) tomatoes his wife got at the Oly Farmers' Market.
We tried Olpaka and others but I think that the variety was the heirlooms Sausage or Howard German which Al still calls the seeds he saves each year.
TSC put Super Marzano in their national catalog but not the PNW one until this year. Maybe after I told them that several of us were getting good results in Olympia, they put it in so we could buy the seed from them.
I am on the second year with another plum called Milano (tall det.) which sure was prolific last year. We'll see what the results are this year.
Gary
Olympia Sunset Zone 5, USDA Zone 8
Gardening for the Homebrewer: Grow and Process Plants for Making Beer, Wine, Gruit, Cider, Perry, and More
By co-authors Debbie Teashon (Rainy Side Gardeners) and Wendy Tweton