Overgrown tomato plants

[Laurasilva]

I need advice, my tomato plants are huge, they are in a greenhouse, because of the heavy winds I have in my area, they need protection.

I have blooms, few tomatoes, but the plants are over 5 feet tall and have folded over and are reaching the ground.

Can I trim them without loosing the plant

[TZ -OH6]

Trimming/topping won't hurt the plant, but it will affect production since fruit/flowers are produced sequentially on a vine, so letting them grow along the ground would give you more fruit.


5 ft isn't large for your basic indeterminant tomato plant. You might want to go with dwarf varieties or compact determinants next year.

[soil]

topping them will make suckers grow from below bearing new fruit. but don't let too many of them grow or it will become a big mess. we are limited to 12 ft in our greenhouse and they hit the top a month ago.

[Laurasilva]

thank you everyone for your kind advice, I feel better now. This is my 3rd year trying to garden, first two years didn't have much luck with plants
Never in my life did I think tomato plants grew so large. But I know bettter now for next year. Wow!

[farmerlon]

..., but the plants are over 5 feet tall and have folded over and are reaching the ground.

I suggest giving the plants some support... with cages or stakes, or some other method. I think the plants are much more manageable (and usually healthier) when they are kept up off of the ground.

[TZ -OH6]

In a greenhouse it is easy to grow more plants close together and prune them to 1-2 vines wrapped around droplines from the ceiling (commercial greenhouses simply let out more line from the ceiling spool when the vines get to the top and let the bottom lie on the floor. Much easier to work with than cages and stakes. With a long season you can use the suckers from the first plant as cuttings to multiply your numbers.