This winter I am experimenting with preserving mother plants via planting of suckers.
I have rooted some. The plan is to lop off 6-8 weeks of growth from the plant and root it. Leave the plant to grow a side sucker in a larger pot. Eventually I should end up with 3 generations for each plant before the thaw arrives.
I am in Denver (zone 5a).
Has anybody got any experience with this? There are lots of YouTube videos but I don't trust them.
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applestar
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I’ve never quite gotten around to growing extra tomato plants from suckers because
(1) during the growing season, I have no more space and am pretty much overwhelmed with what I already have growing (BEST vigorous suckers grow earlier)
(2) later in the season, it’s not easy to catch the suckers before the leaf diseases set in
But they do root easily and I recommend fertilizer that contains equal ratio of N-P-K like 4-4-4 plus calcium and magnesium.
As for growing tomatoes in containers during the winter, I haven’t done it in the last couple of years (focusing on overwintering peppers and eggplants right now), but if you’re interested in long rambling reads, I have several years worth of “winter indoor tomatoes” and winter indoor garden” threads archived here.
Lights I mentioned before. Size of containers matter like @imafan said…. And longevity and production next year may not be assured — you may need to grow new plants from cuttings from these a few weeks (maybe 4 weeks) before time to plant them out.
In my experience, they need strong (100W equivalent) daylight range and will bloom and try to produce fruits during winter except during Persephone Days of approximately 3 weeks before and after Winter Solstice, as long as they have mid to low 60’s minimum temp.
So you might want to limit blooming and fruiting to preserve plant vigor, and encourage suckers to grow (in other words, don’t pinch all the suckers) and plan for harvestable suckers to root/grow at the right time to use.
Main pests and diseases I’ve encountered are aphids, mites (red spider, two spotted, russet, and possibly cyclamen) — hot dry air, and whiteflies … and fungal issues. Fungus gnats in the pot.
(1) during the growing season, I have no more space and am pretty much overwhelmed with what I already have growing (BEST vigorous suckers grow earlier)
(2) later in the season, it’s not easy to catch the suckers before the leaf diseases set in
But they do root easily and I recommend fertilizer that contains equal ratio of N-P-K like 4-4-4 plus calcium and magnesium.
As for growing tomatoes in containers during the winter, I haven’t done it in the last couple of years (focusing on overwintering peppers and eggplants right now), but if you’re interested in long rambling reads, I have several years worth of “winter indoor tomatoes” and winter indoor garden” threads archived here.
Lights I mentioned before. Size of containers matter like @imafan said…. And longevity and production next year may not be assured — you may need to grow new plants from cuttings from these a few weeks (maybe 4 weeks) before time to plant them out.
In my experience, they need strong (100W equivalent) daylight range and will bloom and try to produce fruits during winter except during Persephone Days of approximately 3 weeks before and after Winter Solstice, as long as they have mid to low 60’s minimum temp.
So you might want to limit blooming and fruiting to preserve plant vigor, and encourage suckers to grow (in other words, don’t pinch all the suckers) and plan for harvestable suckers to root/grow at the right time to use.
Main pests and diseases I’ve encountered are aphids, mites (red spider, two spotted, russet, and possibly cyclamen) — hot dry air, and whiteflies … and fungal issues. Fungus gnats in the pot.
Tomatoes are hard to keep over winter. In the tropics they are perennials but they are usually killed by disease. Unless you have small varieties they will take up too much space and they will have high light requirements if you want to get any fruit. Pests love them especially when they are in distress. There is no point to keeping determinate tomatoes. It would be better to just start seeds early indoors and select early varieties that are appropriate for your climate. It would be more worthwhile to try to over winter longer lived plants that can go dormant over winter.
Save seeds from your tomatoes if they are open pollinated. Plant at the right time. If you have good hybrid tomatoes they may not breed true, but I have had luck by basically replanting the best from the next generations Valentine is now a F5 generation and it has been mostly stable. Some of the plants were not as sweet so I only kept the seeds from the sweet and larger fruited ones. Tomatoes, eggplant, and some peppers here are technically perennial. They are usually killed by disease, since I don't have to worry about frost. The average life span of a tomato is 10 months, but most will not produce anything during the hottest months of the year July-August. Since, on average I only keep about 3 tomatoes intentionally, the rest are wild, I don't do a lot of planting in a year. Some peppers can last 8-10 years, some can make it a couple of years, and bell peppers won't even make it more than a few months. Eggplant can be 5-8 years, but they lose productivity and get over 5 ft tall, so I replace them after 2-3 years for the best production and size.