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Growing Tomatoes

Should I transplant container tomatoes?

aliceinvirginia

15 years ago

I planted what I thought were Tiny Tim tomatoes in one corner of a self-watering container. Since they are now 3-4 feet tall, the seed label was very wrong.

So I have two plants, 6" apart, with about 8-12 inches spacing from the nearest pepper plant.

One of them is starting to get yellow bloom flowers. I think they are determinate because they have one main stalk and the branches go straight out. Very self supporting, unlike my Roma that is supposed to be determinate. I'm only staking them because I get heavy winds on my balcony.

Should I transplant them into their own container? I probably woould not be able to do more than 5 gallon pot.

If I do transplant, should I dare to separate the plants?

First frost here is probably in 2 months - beginning of november.

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Comments (5)

digdirt2
15 years ago
Too late IMO. Too big now at 3-4' to transplant and a 5 gal. container wouldn't be much improvement anyway. Best to just get what you can out of it as it is.

Dave
pianist
15 years ago
Hi there

I have several 3-4ft plants sharing containers, and they are all setting fruit. I am not sure whether they will do as well as the plants which made it to 5-gallon pots, or the ones I planted in the garden; but, so far, it looks promising. I had every intention of potting these up to 5 gallon pots, but couldn't find any within miles, and am still waiting for some which were back-ordered. Sometimes it doesn't work out the way we plan, huh?

Best of luck!
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Paula, Just check the soil and water when they need it. Since you have sandy soil, you may have to water pretty often unless there's a pretty high water table under ground. When you check your soil, use a trowel to sort of open a 'test hole' about 4" down and stick your fingers down into that area to check for moistness. Remember that your goal should be evenly moist soil, and not a cycle of wet-dry-wet-dry. For everyone else, I hope your tomatoes are pulling out of their too-much-moisture-funk. The 2.5" we had here lasted about 3 days and then we were back to being as dry as a bone with the soil cracking and all. I am not expecting very good production from most of the veggie garden if this hot weather sticks around. We need some cold fronts to cool us off. Normally, in an 'average' summer, if there is such a thing, my garden produces great until July when the heat tends to shut down production of some veggies like tomatoes, sweet peppers, green beans, etc. This year, the typical 'shut down' heat of July arrived in late May and I think it shows in the slowing production in the garden. Our temperatures are looking high for the rest of June and the heat index numbers aren't great either. I'm not joking about building a shade canopy over my garden. I'd do it if I could. I bought a 30' x 6' shade cloth yesterday to suspend over one bed of tomatoes to give them some relief from the heat. Now, I have to decide which tomato bed gets the shade cloth. Dawn
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tn_veggie_gardner
15 years ago
Yea, at 3-4 ft, I wouldn't transplant now. Probably too late. That's about the size of 2 of my 6 plants, which hopefully will flower any day now. I transplanted all 6 when they were about 6-8 inches tall. I'll usually loosen the soil around them & start to take the top layer of it off a bit (maybe half an inch) until I see roots, that way I know how far they extend. Then, i'll dig out the whole "clump" and put it in the new container, giving it all fresh potting soil. This, or any other method, would be very hard to do with a plant the size of yours, i'm sure. Mine are in 10 gallon pots.
solanaceae
15 years ago
I would leave them. It will produce more like one plant kind of like a second runner. Next time 5 gallon pot are great for Toms as long as its not just junky used up top soil.

Romas are also not really self supporting. Even tight rows need a Florida weave which is the least invasive measure. They should get to around 4-5 feet and there is no way the runners can hold up those tomato clusters.
tn_veggie_gardner
15 years ago
good to know about the Roma's as this is my 1st year growing that variety. :)

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