Hi everyone,
I’m new to gardening and this is my first year growing tomatoes. I live in an apartment but have a decent sized balcony. Prior to starting, I had no idea about zones, first frost and all of that (i kinda still don’t LOL) but around April, I decided to plant some tomatoes and peppers from seeds. Well fast forward to September, my tomatoes won’t stop growing 😭. One of the plants got so tall, it’s touching the ceiling of my patio. I guess my question is, is this normal? Is it going to keep growing? I have about 5 tomato plants and 2/5 of them have been producing fruits (though they are still green) and the other 3 plants just have flowers. Did I also start planting late? Same with my pepper plants, flowers but no fruit 🙁
Also, I live in GA…the weather is still very warm. Gets up to 80s during the day and 68-70s during the early mornings/late nights.
by InitiativeOwn315
9 Comments
They truly are what varieties do you have?
Since I didn’t see a type of tomato, my guess is you either have indeterminate (keep growing and growing) tomatoes, or they’re leggy, and searching for sun because they aren’t getting enough.
Not enough sun
Have you had them in the shade or full sun the whole time? They will keep getting longer and longer unless you prune the top then the get wider , you have to keep pruning the suckers especially in a pot so small you shouldn’t let them get that big in that small space all energy is going to growing them instead of fruit, also what type of fertilizer have you been using ? I have in ground tomatoes and have had a terrible season due to the heat but now it’s cooling down a little zone 7b I’m getting lots of tomatoes growing some green a few red, I actually started new plants a month and a half ago and they have caught up to my early season tomatoes and are producing more than them.
It is normal for indeterminate tomato varieties to grow very tall. But these look a little etoliated to me, like they arent getting enough sun. The spacing inbetween the nodes is quite large, if they got more sun they would definitely be more compact and sturdy.
They are starving for sunlight
https://preview.redd.it/5talqx9amsnf1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1c7323550006aec04827910e691e8ee268a0744e
Some tomatoes just don’t stop growing but because yours have a lot of space between the leaves they look leggy, and not getting enough sunlight especially since they are 2-3 pots deep from the edge of the balcony it looks like. Tomatoes are sun lovers, these are south facing
Haha these need to be stringed up and lowered every couple weeks!
Love from the Cognisphere 🪽🪴
Trim them next time to your desired end height. I like eye level. Makes it easy to reach into the plant to prune and gather.