Grow Your Own Magazine

I was wondering if anyone knows how long it takes for a tumbler tomato to start falling over the side of the hanging basket? At the moment it is still growing upwards and getting tangled up in the chains! It is about 9 inches high at the moment.

thats whats happening to mine aswell, know have toms starting to form so i would think that they ll head south soon

You may be expecting to much of the cascade effect from your tumbling toms. I have found them to be a good cropper but have never had them falling much below the bottom of the basket and that most of the fruit has been above the rim. However the growth height has never been higher than the top of the chain. Hope that is of some help.

Ian

My tumbling toms (which are in buckets not baskets, so I'm quite happy to hear that they don't tumble all that much...) are growing straight up and tall, despite having no support or anything - they are about a foot tall now with flower buds just starting to form.

*Unlike* my sprawling sun babies which are supposed to be cordon/indeterminate but despite my diligent efforts to pinch out side shoots and get them growing up a cane they still look very small and bushy - and have already started to flower... not sure what I am doing wrong there! Maybe I waited too long to pot them on and the root constriction in the smaller pot is having a bad effect - although only on the sunbaby not on the tumbling tom. I'm sort of assuming they will recover and do what they are supposed to when they realise what's what.

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Warning: I have a dangerous tendency to act like I know what I'm talking about.

I found that it was the weight of the fruit that made them tumble over the side - but having also grown them accidentally in large pots on the patio, they were pretty vigorus and didnt really fall over as such.

You can encourage the younger stems to trail over to make picking easier by bending them and tying with string until the growth pattern is established, but you have to be careful to avoid snapping them!

This is good to read, as due to my young daughter "helping" me with the repotting, I don't which of my tomatoes are tumblers and which aren't. Maybe I can get away with planting all of them in the ground and just watching out for them...

jc.jh - what variety is the tomato - when you say tumbler do you mean the variety is Tumbler?

If it is the latter, they can grow quite bushy upwards and then suddenly go - I have had a couple split their stems in this way but they went on to flourish.

You can encourage the plant in one direction by tilting the pot or basket. Make sure it's level when you water it though

See, I'm now wondering if my "little helper" might have mixed up the labels on my toms now - the alleged tumbling toms are growing straight up while the alleged (cordon) sun babies are still looking very bushy. Hm. Not sure what to do now as I don't want to try and train the "sunbabies" up canes if they are really tumbling toms!! Maybe I am worrying unduly?

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Warning: I have a dangerous tendency to act like I know what I'm talking about.

As "Tumblers" are bush varieties you can also encourage them to form side shoots by pinching out the main growing tip which is the one growing skywards.

Hi my tumbler is growing upwards to...have lots of flowers but only on tomato forming..what am i doing wrong ??

My Tumbling Toms were fairly quiet for a while, then I had one tom, and now in the last couple of days I've counted at least 20 on one plant. They are teeny tiny at the mo but still fabulous. The other is a little behind but I guess that will help spread the glut a bit!

Once they got going it seemed very sudden - and exciting!

I had definitely got mine mixed up. The "real" tumbler hasn't grown upwards at all but has stayed as a very small bush. Although I think I may have stunted it a bit by not potting it on quickly enough... Anyway, one of the 4 had the first tomato on it for ages and now the same plant has half a dozen - they all have plenty of flowers, just waiting for tomatoes now!

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Warning: I have a dangerous tendency to act like I know what I'm talking about.

i have mine deep planted in a hanging basket at a 45 degree angle with a little string loop around stem and base of basket, (get the picture) for a while i have just topped them up with compost every week to strengthen them and now they are starting to tumble big style loads of little 5p size toms and upwards of 2.7 zillion flowers oooooh lucky me.

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thoughts from the head of
phil the shed.........

Mine are growing up but as more flowers appear they seem to be leaning over a bit. Hope they don`t snap under the weight when the toms start to get bigger! The leaves are slightly yellow - hope this isn`t a problem as they`ve had plenty of fertilizer.

got 4 plants in a large planter they are loads of flowers,so am gunna get loads of toms yummy.they are absolute monsters lol

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joanne culyer

got three sungold, growing outside, not looking too bad considering the windy weather, and four garden perle in baskets, two are going up, and up and.......... A large camelia blew over in the wind and broke off three branches with lots of flower buds, the other two were sown and planted out later and look a bit more inclined to bush out.

Plenty of flowers so here's hoping.