Moving tomatoes - waste of time? Container-tomato specific

[Tilde]

Bear in mind we maybe have 1 or 2 days a year on average that gets below freezing.

I threw a bunch of tomato plants into wide, shallow (only 14'') pots and let them on the porch. Low yield, some die off. Some died bad, some coming back. Will see if determinate or non determinate.

I want to use those pots for mini carrots instead - the one plant that is bushy and not scraggly or dying looking (lots of bushy leaves) is the healthiest, the rest are pretty tall, skinny, with no leaves.

I've already pruned off dead branches.

Any point in lopping the skinny ones (all cherry variety) down to about a foot high and planting them in 5 gal buckets? Will they come back?

The big healthy one - about 2 1/2 to 3 foot tall. Prune it or just replant it? Am I simply going to lose all these plants and my original $4 investment ... or should I try it and re buy if they do die?

[Tilde]

Thanks for the tips. Especially about rooting the prunings.

I looked at the pots last night - looks like one of the indie cherries is good, the others not worth it. the "big tomato" plant is a Jetstar? It's pretty dead except for one branch - I'll prune that branch and plop it in with some onions.

[gixxerific]

Than again the thin ones may just come back after an uplanting into better/fresher soil. That is the norm when up-potting. Plants normally take off like on nitros. You could go that way as well and if they don't come back than buy some new ones.