Hi all, this is my first time planting tomatoes and these are called “pineapple”. I tried them at a farmers market and liked them so I decided to plant myself in a raised bed I built and I have no idea what I am doing. The plants themselves have grown over the large cages I bought and won’t stop growing. It’s almost like a tomato bush. I was reading online and it doesn’t look like this variety of tomato plant is supposed to get this large. My concern is the plant is not going to be able to support itself if its produces a lot of large fruit
by SlyJoker97
18 Comments
They look super healthy to me. I’d advise building a trellis so the plants can vine up instead of vining on top of each other. They like good air flow.
Years supply of tomatoes in coming haha. Well done
Next season (or even now), look into pruning suckers, there are loads of helpful videos on youtube. One thing I’d definitely do is remove lower leaves to lessen the chances of diseased plants, you want to keep leaves and tomatoes off the ground and away from splashes from the soil. That said, I’ve had plenty of unruly plants that did fine. Just keep a watchful eye and support any fruit-heavy branches with extra bamboo stakes and velcro/etc as needed.
Trim out the bottom 4 branches of each plant to help with air flow.
Way to brag! 😂 In all seriousness, your plants look extremely healthy. If you’re adding nitrogen, you might want to stop, and consider adding something with more phosphorus or potassium instead.
Depending on your climate and moisture, you might need to thin the leaves as the fruit begins to set. And like other comment said, some kind of trellis (string around posts works great) to keep it contained and for the branches to have support would be another wise idea.
Great job so far, though!
I have grown these before, and they are a large indeterminate variety, so what you are seeing is not abnormal.
You don’t need to cage or support tomatoes, but having them grow along the ground significantly increases the odds they will pick up a bacterial or fungal disease. Some of these can be pretty catastrophic, but they are not a forgone conclusion as you still might get a lot of tomatoes given that you have a lot of plant growing there.
But if you want to, you can certainly go in and hack these back and support them. I had a bed about this big I planted and then left for a month while I was on a trip. I came back to a similar situation. I spent all last weekend intangling, pruning, and trussing them up. Now they are looking good!
You really need to pay attention to any type of pest if they start in the middle it could be awhile before you notice especially that long green monster that blends in so nicely, I check mine daily because it got me a few times and I said not this year , I wish mine were that big though, get ready to do some canning
Looks healthy and fine to me maybe just a little densely packed but aside from that it looks good! Maybe prune bottoms and overcrowded spots a little bit and support them on 8 ft stakes or 6 ft stakes.
lol I planted Matt’s Wild Tomatoes at my house our first year and they did this and there were so many fruits that I couldn’t get to all of them. So the next year we had about 100 baby volunteer tomato plants growing and they got so thick we called it Fangorn Forest lol.
How many did you plant? We just started cutting off anything that wasn’t actively growing tomatoes because it became so unruly and the plants did just fine.
You need to prune tomato plants, primarily the ‘suckers’ because a single tomato plant will turn into 12 by the end of the season.
Need some bottom trimming but they look good to me maybe not so many together next time
Hellfire. Yours look better than mine. We had so much rain in the cincinnati area, I worry if my tomatoes will make it this year.
I’m pretty jealous of those beautiful plants.
You’ll have gorgeous tomatoes.
Would love to see some more pics later!!
Try to keep it watered and you should be fine.
https://preview.redd.it/zd8gw8eu7raf1.jpeg?width=3000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2b0e5218683f842c7a4e25b5e00e2b7e729a9994
The way I grow them every year.
I’ve got one pineapple tomato in a raised bed and it is very pushy, the most vigorous variety I’ve grown. It, too, needs potassium.
Listen, you’re going to get tomatoes from it, right? Then you win. There’s no one way to do it You can spend as much time in your garden as you want to, work as hard as you want to. Some people have immaculate beds. Some people throw seeds all over with no idea what they are. Some people let everything die except the true soldiers, and then they know the next year to grow more of the varieties that survived their neglect and climate. Are you getting pollination? Are you having issues with fungus or pests? You could try to fix the problem, or not.
Yes, you need to hold the camera so that one of the edges is parallel to the horizon.
Leaves are curling inwards, which to my knowledge indicates they need more water.