[MittleiderMethodGardening] Growing Plants Vertically - How Tall Do You Let Them Go?
Group: A question about vertical tomatoes and other tall plants came up this morning from a Mittleider gardener - when to cut off the growing tip to stop the plants' growth? Here's the discussion:
"though I have been gardening with you guys for three years and read your book probably 4 times, I just now caught that I am supposed to prune the growing tips of the vertical plants after they reach the top of the t-posts? Oh my goodness, I have been fighting 15 foot long vines for years!" A. in Temple, Texas
My response: "In temperate climates such as the central and northern States experience, we recommend cutting off the growing tip at 7' because by that time of year the frost will kill the plant before it matures any more fruit above that height. However, in warm climates (like Texas, Arizona, So. California, Florida, etc.) that "rule" does not apply, and you will want to leave your growing tip intact until just 8 weeks before killing frost, whenever that is.
And if you are growing in a greenhouse that will protect your plants through the winter (or even into December as is often the case with an in-the-garden greenhouse) you will have plants that are very tall indeed.
In these situations we recommend having baling twine strings 10' to 11' long, with the extra length at the top, and letting the string and the plant down, and down, with the stem bending near the ground, so that you can continue to harvest fruit at a height that is comfortable for you to reach.
Sometimes we will elect to train the plant to bend and come back down toward the ground, rather than slackening the line. Either way, the plant does get a bit more "messy" to deal with, but the upside is that you continue harvesting ripe tomatoes for several more weeks, and even months, with adequate protection.
Jim Kennard
__._,_.___
Posted by: jim@growfood.com
| Reply via web post | • | Reply to sender | • | Reply to group | • | Start a New Topic | • | Messages in this topic (1) |
Have you tried the highest rated email app?
With 4.5 stars in iTunes, the Yahoo Mail app is the highest rated email app on the market. What are you waiting for? Now you can access all your inboxes (Gmail, Outlook, AOL and more) in one place. Never delete an email again with 1000GB of free cloud storage.
.
__,_._,___
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment