In my high tunnel production i went from a double row to a single row in a 36" bed and 90 precent of my disease problems went away. I had strong, healthy plants I just took down last week hrere in western Oregon. Air flow seems to be the key to reducing leaf diseases.
I love the fact that these videos are interesting and educational. This channel has really got me into wanting to start my own garden and get into composting.
@@REDGardens thank you I have bad circulation so I grow medicinal plants. You just made it easier. I will try this with mints and other medicinal vines. I add them to water tonic which a put in a cool mist humidifier. I set indoor humidifier to 65 at night, and as the herbs are vasodilation it helps. My skin is soft and I don’t get numb arms or feet from sleeping wrong. Question? Do you think tulle would work or should it be twine?
Hi, I just want to say thankyou. I've been growing tomatoes for 4 years now, and always struggled with the height they get to. You've shown me they can be grown horizontally which has drastically improved the way I manage my tomatoes. You are an inspiration, thankyou so much!
Moses Sandals! 102kg of tomatoes is incredible. Once again I bow to you. It's clearly more than a full time job to manage all you do, plus give us a university quality education on garden vegetables. Many thanks.
@@REDGardens well dang-it, I've been hesitant in the past. However today I will patreon for the first time I ever in my life. Never before have i been so motivated before by a youtube series that i would consider contributing "out of pocket". That said; your content compels me to see how far you can push this.
Used tomahooks for the first time last year, but due to time pressure had to just top my tomatoes. I'll certainly follow your example with the additional strings this year. Thank you for sharing in such a clear manner.
They do make some tasks easier. Avoiding needing to untie and tie knots is one thing, but not having that long length od twine hanging around is definitely a bonus!
I'm curious to see how you like the multi-runner method. I've settled on two runners, one straight up, and one offset about 12" to the side, each with their own string. For me, diverting the growth to two tips slows down the height increase enough that by the end of the season, they are just over-topping the eight foot rail the strings hang from (this is outdoors), and I can harvest without needing a step-stool. So I get about sixteen or seventeen feet of total growth per plant. If I were growing inside a small polytunnel with a lower ceiling, I would probably do three runners. Thanks, as always, for sharing your knowledge and experience, Bruce!
I've also settled on two. I leave the sucker to be the new upright, and bend the original over to the offset line. This helps the sucker gain strength and slows the growth on the horizontal bit for a moment.
That makes a lot of sense. I am looking forward to trying out a few different methods next year, including one with every third larger side shoot left to grow. Thanks
I use twist ties to attach my plants to their supports. Not technically biodegradable but basically harmless. A great tomatoes variety for cool weather growing is Stupice. It is very early,indeterminate, very short day to maturity, about ping pong ball in size, delicious, and produces heavily right through till first frost.
@@REDGardens I find Stupice rather under performing both indoors and outdoors. They are super early considering how good they taste but that is all. Having one plant for very early toms is good but I decided to remove them it for my varieties for good.
@@kubaistube I like the option of growing a few plants of really early varieties and then removing them as other varieties start to produce better later in the season.
Bruce, the idea of hanging them horizontally is incredibly genious. Thank you once again for this extremely informativ video. And congratulations, 13kg pr m² is just amazing. I do wonder if laying sideways is also helping to produce very productive plants since their root system is much more developed? - A proud Patreon supporter!
Thanks for being a Patreon supporter!! I was wondering if the horizontal growing would change the way the plant grew, at least compared to growing them vertically. Would be interesting to find out.
This is great! I'm going to try the elevated runners on my long varieties. I think the added time of the extra supports will be made up for in harvest time and quality.
What a great way of growing tomatoes, and they were so prolific. It makes me wonder how underutilized they are if we had all had a higher space for self-sufficient growing. Instead of growing more plants, we just allow the ones we are going to grow to be more prolific. When watching, I wondered if they could grow up and over arches. It would take a lot of arches though, with the added expense. and all that space underneath. Just a thought, I'm thinking aloud really :) . The length of those is really tremdous. Thanks for giving me so much to think about. All the best.
Arches would be interesting. I think one of the benefits of this method is that the growing tip can always grow upwards, with the stem being dropped to a more horizontal or slight slope later, which I think benefits the plant.
Nice. My season just starting. I dont have a polytunnel, so i have overhead wires at full arm reach. Some of the tomato plants produced weird two way branch and had to pick one to prune, as dont want a double leader. Another method i've seen someone produce super long plants by growing fewer plants, each clipped to different level of horizontal wires, like an espalier tree method. Another alternative is to introduce a second crop in the one season, which may reduce space and disease pressure problems.
I have also noticed those double leaders, or at least a side shoot that is just as strong as the main leader. Not sure what causes it, but I just pick one to remove. The espalier tree method sounds quite interesting. I wonter if it owed be a useful option for growing outside here in Ireland.
I have started hanging my tomatoes this year. Its only early in the season here in Australia but very hopeful we get a high yield. Thankyou for all your content.
since you've done other tasting trials, I'd be interested in one where you evaluate the taste of the fruits ripened on vs. off the vine! I personally didn't find there to be a real difference but it is controversial with gardeners. :D ripening off vine increases the yield for sure because there is less chance for them to split or rot when they finish on a cool shelf out of the elements.
It is interesting to see how other growers adapt to their growing season. You must have around 160 days plus? In my northern region our growing season is typically around 110 days in the high tunnels. I have developed a system that works really well for me and I only grow organic heirlooms. For years I grew 300 single stem tomato plants per house which produced about 2400 lbs of fruit most years. I thought I was doing good. With the techniques I slowly shifted towards, I now raise 110 plants in the same space with an average of 6 leaders per plant. My averages output is now in the 4000 lbs 4400 lbs. or 40 lbs per plant. So I essentially went from 300 stems to 660 stems in the same space. It is defiantly more work and I should have bought stock in the company that makes tomahooks. haha The other import thing I do is my trimming and training. No later then July 15th I top the plants and remove any new flowers that will not have time to produce fruit in the next 5 weeks. Every week I remove about a 12 inch section of lower leaves working my way up. My wife calls this "giving them a haircut". These simple techniques shocks the plants (in a good way) into thinking the season is coming to and end and they put all of their energy into fruiting and not vegetative growth. I also start limiting the water and I stop watering within 5 days of going to the market. I discovered that the plants go into a survival mode and push the sugars out of the roots into the fruit. Over watering makes the fruit mushy and tasteless. By August 1st the plants look terrible but the fruit is just hanging in huge beautiful clusters.
We might have 160 days in the polytunnel, but outside it is quite different. But as we don't get the same dramatic shifts in weather between the seasons it is harder to put a number of days on it. Thanks for sharing your experiences, it is so valuable to hear about the details of what you are doing, and the differences it makes. I am very interested in trying out a similar approach that you have used, with multiple stems per plant and the pruning to force plants to focus. And restricting watering is an interesting one.
Can you grow tomatoes outdoors in your area? There is no way we can grow outdoors in our area . (I am in Wasilla Alaska) This is what is so amazing about high tunnels. They are a game changer. One of our key reasons for success is our long day light hours at the end of June. Sunrise is at 4am and sunset is around 11pm. If you can even call it sunset. What I do to encourage more fruit productions (stress) will be the exact same process that you can do in your area. You will just have more time to accomplish it which may actually give you more fruit then I can get in my shorter season. As the plants are growing in the early season I choose which leaders or suckers to keep. I try for 5-6. I do not allow any other suckers to grow and keep up on removing those. After the summer solstice the plants naturally recognize the days are shortening and shift into fruit production. Its hard to see the signs for the first few weeks, but it is happening. So....why is this important and how can we use this to produce more food? If you think about it, all plants have only one single goal. They MUST produce as much fruit, aka seeds, as possible to keep the species going. That is it! That is all they programed to do. They don't care about what the neighbors think about our pretty gardens or the prices we can sell the tomatoes for at the market or even if we survive. Their only purpose of "being" is to keep their species going. They have developed this system over thousands and thousands of years for a specific reason. So my technique of "stressing the plants" stating around July 1st helps with their biological process of growth. Small amounts of stress tricks the plants into biologically thinking the season is coming to an end and they in turn do everything they can to produce more seeds. So the first stress I introduce is trimming lower leaves about a week after the solstice. The plants in turn produce more growth hormones. Remember, the days are getting shorter and now they have lost some of their ability to photosynthesize light. They kick it up a notch and the vegetative growth can double in the next two weeks. Every week I do a little more lower leave trimming and the plants respond by putting out more flowers and starting the early fruit growth. About July 15th, I top the plants at 5-6 feet and remove all new flowers and all suckers. This is a big stress for the plants and I suspect they produce a different type of hormone and shift more towards seed/fruit production. I keep trimming lower level leaves and back off on the watering around 3rd week of July or Aug 1st. This is a huge stressor on the plants and you will see the fruit double in size very few days. They are convinced the season is coming to an end and they go crazy producing more seeds/fruit. The biggest advantage of "water stressing" is the plants move the sugars out of the root systems into the fruit. Every customer at the market can taste it, they sell themselves. I have gone as long as 3 weeks between watering and you have to watch this very closely. When I do water they will only get just cups and not gallons. Just enough to keep them alive. By mid to late August that plants look terrible and they look like they are on deaths door step. If I do water the plants, I only water on late Saturday or Sunday. To much water and the plants pull or transfer the sugars from the fruit to the roots and the tomatoes will taste mushy. This gives me 5 plus days to stress the plants out and force the sugars back into the fruit giving me super sweet fruit for the market. Sorry this is so long, but if you can implement a system like this for your area I guarantee you will become famous and wealthy and all the women will love you and all the men will want to be just like you. If you can remember, let me know how things go with your tomatoes next summer. John
I just went back and looked at your numbers and they are actually very good. I grow a lot of Black Krim and I average 40lbs per plant. But.....that is from 5 leaders per plant. That means that I average 8 pounds per leader which is the same as you do with your single leader per plant. I dont have any experiences out side of Alaska gardening and just I realized that due to our short seasons we need to grow our indeterminate plants like determinate plants. I'll bet with some fine tuning in a larger high tunnel you could produce 15-20lb per leader in your longer growing season. That would be something else!
@@johnmcneal9477 Hey John, that sounds very interesting, thanks for sharing your experiences. I have heard about the method of stressing plants, or at least not providing them with everything they need, in order to encourage them to focus! The way I have thought about it is a bit different. The plants are actually perennials, and expect multiple growing seasons, so have no problem growing lots of vegetation if the space and fertility is available, and will get around to producing fruit later. That of course doesn't work in this climate or in yours! So definitely something to try for next year. I do a fair amount of pruning of the lower leaves, but I tend to overwater (I think). Our summer weather isn't as extreme as yours, but we do have very long days in the early summer, about 2.5 hours shorter than yours according to this link weatherspark.com/compare/y/33067~262/Comparison-of-the-Average-Weather-in-Birr-and-Wasilla#Figures-Daylight
I use the wind the tomato round the string method for mine, letting more string down from the top as required and also dropping the whole plant down a bit when the base of the vine becomes bare. But I do have trouble with all those strings when harvest is over so those clips are something I want to try. I just need to find a source for me here. I appreciate how you always share great information. Even if I know a variety that does well for you might not for me and vice versa, it's all good. It's great to see what you are doing and recording, and learn some things to have a go at doing to see if the method can improve things or fix a problem. Thanx
I found the combination of the biodegradable twine and the hooks to be really useful, and saves a lot of hassle during the year and time at the end of the season. The clips are an added bonus, that are useful in combination with winding up. Glad you are getting a lot out of my videos!
With tomahooks in our high tunnel, a big help was to use a $10 old people style grabber tool / trash picker-upper. Since it extends your reach, you can stand on the ground and not have to use a ladder to unhook, unwind, and rehook.
Tomato training proffesional i am very impressed, i try my best with 3 leaders of a cherry tomato every year but this is different. Thanks alot for ur video's
What do you think about setting up a espalier as you might for viticulture? I can't grow tomatoes without the DREADED tomato hornworm. They're everywhere!
Hi sir. What is your favorite online forum to go when you have problems in your garden? Is there a forum that has a lot of expert and lots of activity, where I can upload pictures if some of my plants have problems? I am not on social medias no more so preferably nothing from facebook or twitter and stuff like that. Thank you.
I don't have a forum that I go to for issues, though I know that a fair number of them exist in various platforms. I tend to just search UA-cam or the wider internet. Hope you fine something that works for you.
Have a look into planting trees the Ellen white method... usually applied to fruit trees .... however has been used for tomatoes and reports of harvesting upto 100 pounds per plant.
I have a 6x8’ greenhouse and primarily grow tomatoes in it. I run out of height quickly and I’m not sure I have the total length required to make sufficient use of your approach. I wonder if I could do two sets of sowings throughout the year. Just discard the first once their done, especially since they hit the top fairly early. Maybe have a couple weeks overlap after planting.
That option could work. I wonder if the delay between the two batches would be worth it. Another option, which I have not tried but I think might work, would be to just heavily cut back the existing plant to a point lower in the stem. This will likely prompt the plant to sed up additional side shoots, but with the abundance of established roots, and continue to grow. A variation of that would be to let one or more of the side shoots that develop lower down on the plant grow, and at the appropriate time cut back the main leaders and let this new one take over. If this works you benefit from the strength of the existing plant, and without interrupting the harvest too much.
I am planning a video about that soon, but basically I have an honesty fridge, and neighbours come and take what they want, and pay what they think it is worth. It works really well in my context, and a fair amount of food gets distributed that way.
Interested in your horizontal strings for hanging toms. We are starting summer in Australia and I have some in hydroponic Dutch bucket system. They are just starting to reach the top and was wondering how they are clipped onto adjoining strings. I hear commercial crops get about 28 t/ha so 28 kgs/m2.
By my calculations, 28 t/ha is 2.8kg/m2 - I assume that is field scale tomato production without supports, pruning, etc. The Dutch bucket system looks interesting.
Do you think it’s worth the extra effort to start and plant them when you do, given that the plants are growing so large that you have to lean even when trusses haven’t fully ripened? Thinking a later start would help avoid this challenge of having tomatoes on the ground while freeing more time up for you in that early spring time? Incredible yield regardless and incredible work. Wondering how much earlier you get ripe fruit bc of the earlier planting… Your channel is my favourite gardening channel on UA-cam. At the end of the season I am burnt out on garden videos, but yours always bring me back in and get my mind going again. Thank you for these videos, I value them greatly. I had the same issue with the string and the tomatoes in the compost, so I will investigate the biodegradable options. Keep on growing and filming please :)
Sorry for the lack of videos. I am good and healthy, but have been taking a break from the focus on videos over the holiday season. Hope to get a video out this week, and many more in the next few months.
I use to plant them deeper, but I no think that keeping the root ball closer to the surface is better as that is where most of the fertility is, at least with the mostly no-dig beds in this garden. Digging deeper would put the initial root ball in less soil with less fertility and biological activity.
Thanks. I did try some tomato grafting last year, but wasn't very successful, or at least didn't notice any real difference. Hope to try again this season.
Try piennolo del vesuvio tomatoes. It's a old species that normally only grow in Italy, Naples. You can store them for almost one year without getting bad. Do some research about it, they are my favorite tomatoes.
I dont understand if letting every plant to have Two growing TIPS would be simpler, i think that tomatoes outgrow their radical/aereal sweet point, so Ive found that the most critical part Is to bury as many of the plant in the starting of the season, having Also a quote heavy clay ground foot, bringing less pathologies and a longer harvesting season.
A lot ended up in our freezer either as sauce or as semi dried tomatoes. But most probably went to my neighbours through the honesty Veg Fridge that I have set up.
@@REDGardens Oh, I thought with all that market gardening going on, you were running a full scale farm shop or veg box delivery scheme. Good idea to run a co-op veg fridge/freezer for any excess.
@@AtheistEve I have found that the Veg Fridge is a lot more convenient for me, and for the people in my community, as I don't need to stand there or sort anything, and they can get vegetables whenever is convenient to them. I have not tracked how much goes out of the fridge (one of the few things I don't tract!) but I would imagine about 100kg of veg a week during the main part of the growing season.
MMM I love tomatos/ I clustered mine 6 to a bush / I found extra growing at the mature to older gave a extra tartness, very flavorful tomato/, and also veggies in general / I would like to see ice plant along freeways converted to melon gardens.
Great content! I am wondering do you use pesticides on the plants to keep them healthy, because adding compost brings aphids etc...? How about weeding, is it done on a weekly basis to be kept that clean?
Thanks. I don't use pesticides. Compost bringing aphids and other pests is not something I have noticed or really heard about. We try to weed the gardens weekly during the growing season.
hi red, thanks for all you do, its so inspiring! I wonder if you could tell me where to get the big roll of biodegradable twine from please? hope you are well, thanks, ruairi
This system looks a lot like an industrial hydroponic setup i saw somewhere on UA-cam a while back. They had 10m+ long plants on a system lowering the plants automatically. And being hydroponic you always know the plants have enough nutrients.
I tend to leave stronger side shoots on more vigorous plants to grow later in the season, lets say at about 1m of height of the main stem - this way less vigorous plants are not overwhelmed by neighbour's shoots since the beginning. Because of limited height of the growing space I end up with several out of total 24 plants having up to 5 stems, which is great for varieties that grow well till the end of the season having those less resilient removed to give more space for the others.
Hello there in Africa! I don’t have much experience with birds eating tomatoes. Perhaps hanging shiny reflective things among the tomato plants will scare the birds away (I used to use old CDs or DVDs). Or netting the full crop might work, but that makes it more difficult to get in and harvest.
@@jeshurunfarm Excellent! I was thinking of building a jig/frame to make a lot of clips like that but realised it was something I didn't have time for at the moment. But it is definitely doable.
I have looked into those buried greenhouse, which seem to be really useful in some contexts. Here in my context we are so far north that the winter sun is so low in the sky in winter that most of the bottom of the pit would be in shadow for months. And we are also quite a bit warmer (thanks to the Gulf Stream) so don’t get such freezing temperatures to make digging worth while. I’d also be worried about flooding with the amount of rain we get, and the high water table. So I’m not in a place that it would be useful, but I would definitely want to try it out if I lived in a colder climate further south.
That seems like a good option for people to try. Which the explorations I am doing, every time I add something else it adds another potential variable that can confuse any results. So I tend to stay away from that kind intercropping, unless I am specifically exploring intercropping.
Hey guy! I really got into the JADAM methods recently and I think you should try it out. I do recommend watching the whole series of videos so you get the a real deep understanding of the methods, but just making JMS for me is like cheating.
Congrats bro for such of succes, you are one of my favorite channels, I wanna ask you for permition cause I wanna show my viewers in my channel how I learn about heirloom tomatoes from the best posible, that would be you . but I know you tube tells me to ask you for permition. I would just use about 20 seconds bro. is it ok bro? Im a small channel from Cholula Mexico, my name is Enrique Valdivia Osor.
Ah, sorry. I am not comfortable sending seeds international. It has been a problem in the past with the transfer if diseases. I hope you can find seeds locally.
There is a flat tape used to bale straw that some gardeners use in the US to suspend tomato plants. No clips needed. It is not biodegradable. Pretty tuff stuff & can be reused. It fits the tomohawk wire holders. Given that it is flat tape it will not cut into the main leader. It may or may not be more tedious than twine & clips.
I have used baler twine before, but not that type of tape. I find the biodegradable twine very handy, and makes cleaning up the crops at the end of the year a lot easier.
advice for cherry tomato: prune only "femminella" not main plant (idk femminella how to translate from italian but i think you know what i mean) until reach the top, then NOT prune just bend (min 1.20 on video), after this let grow also "femminella" to maximize the crop. you can see all this easily in this video ua-cam.com/video/B7ZbwaGi4a8/v-deo.html she is a fantastic (italian) farmer like you...best wishes
All this research your doing, is something that isnt done anywhere else, i dont know why your channel isnt bigger. I hope you have all your video's copied somewhere else also for when and if Google decides to cannibalize itself.
Very detailed info.
In my high tunnel production i went from a double row to a single row in a 36" bed and 90 precent of my disease problems went away. I had strong, healthy plants I just took down last week hrere in western Oregon. Air flow seems to be the key to reducing leaf diseases.
That is interesting, thanks for sharing. I think airflow is definitely a key factor.
I love the fact that these videos are interesting and educational. This channel has really got me into wanting to start my own garden and get into composting.
I hope you do get started gardening and composting! Red Gardens is a fantastic channel. I've never seen an episode that wasn't excellent.
Plant perennials
Hope you find a way to get growing, and I am so glad to have been part of that inspiration.
@@MeandYouHello Plant whatever you want to grow and eat instead of following arbitrary dogma?
@@REDGardens thank you
I have bad circulation so I grow medicinal plants. You just made it easier. I will try this with mints and other medicinal vines.
I add them to water tonic which a put in a cool mist humidifier. I set indoor humidifier to 65 at night, and as the herbs are vasodilation it helps. My skin is soft and I don’t get numb arms or feet from sleeping wrong.
Question? Do you think tulle would work or should it be twine?
"The harvest of fresh tomatoes is definitely worth it."
you are so right
Definitely!
Hi, I just want to say thankyou. I've been growing tomatoes for 4 years now, and always struggled with the height they get to. You've shown me they can be grown horizontally which has drastically improved the way I manage my tomatoes. You are an inspiration, thankyou so much!
Moses Sandals! 102kg of tomatoes is incredible.
Once again I bow to you. It's clearly more than a full time job to manage all you do, plus give us a university quality education on garden vegetables. Many thanks.
Yeah, I was really pleased with the crop!
@@REDGardens well dang-it,
I've been hesitant in the past.
However today I will patreon for the first time I ever in my life.
Never before have i been so motivated before by a youtube series that i would consider contributing "out of pocket".
That said; your content compels me to see how far you can push this.
@@robertnoel2363 Wow, thank you so much for becoming a Patron!! It definitely means a lot!
This little forest of tomatoes is really beautiful
:)
Fantastic as always, you are a great educator and grower.
Thank you kindly
Nature's Always Right has a beautiful hanging carousel system.
ua-cam.com/video/Q7k33SI2mUI/v-deo.html
Interesting.
You are my favorite channel! Such a generous sharing of knowledge. Thank you.
:)
Knocking it out of the park as always. thanks
:)
I enjoy and appreciate your style of "videography."
Awesome! Thank you!
Used tomahooks for the first time last year, but due to time pressure had to just top my tomatoes. I'll certainly follow your example with the additional strings this year. Thank you for sharing in such a clear manner.
They do make some tasks easier. Avoiding needing to untie and tie knots is one thing, but not having that long length od twine hanging around is definitely a bonus!
Tons of useful information and ideas. Excellent work.
Man, those vines look like tree trunks. 😍
A great concept for inner city clean food development and small community food co ops. Nice work
Thank you!
I'm curious to see how you like the multi-runner method. I've settled on two runners, one straight up, and one offset about 12" to the side, each with their own string. For me, diverting the growth to two tips slows down the height increase enough that by the end of the season, they are just over-topping the eight foot rail the strings hang from (this is outdoors), and I can harvest without needing a step-stool. So I get about sixteen or seventeen feet of total growth per plant. If I were growing inside a small polytunnel with a lower ceiling, I would probably do three runners. Thanks, as always, for sharing your knowledge and experience, Bruce!
I've also settled on two. I leave the sucker to be the new upright, and bend the original over to the offset line. This helps the sucker gain strength and slows the growth on the horizontal bit for a moment.
That makes a lot of sense. I am looking forward to trying out a few different methods next year, including one with every third larger side shoot left to grow. Thanks
Perhaps tomatoes for vertical gardening along ugly concrete walls?
I use twist ties to attach my plants to their supports.
Not technically biodegradable but basically harmless.
A great tomatoes variety for cool weather growing is Stupice.
It is very early,indeterminate, very short day to maturity, about ping pong ball in size, delicious, and produces heavily right through till first frost.
I grew Stupice last year as part of a larger variety trial, and it didn't do as well as I had thought. I should give it another try.
@@REDGardens I find Stupice rather under performing both indoors and outdoors. They are super early considering how good they taste but that is all. Having one plant for very early toms is good but I decided to remove them it for my varieties for good.
@@kubaistube I like the option of growing a few plants of really early varieties and then removing them as other varieties start to produce better later in the season.
I like your set up! I like to watch the tops to the middle from both sides. I'm trying a bag method with trellis.
Thanks.
I commend your effort and excellent recording of your harvest . Thank you
🙂
your voice is so relaxing haha havent watched ur vids in a while keep em comin
:)
Bruce, the idea of hanging them horizontally is incredibly genious. Thank you once again for this extremely informativ video.
And congratulations, 13kg pr m² is just amazing.
I do wonder if laying sideways is also helping to produce very productive plants since their root system is much more developed?
- A proud Patreon supporter!
Thanks for being a Patreon supporter!! I was wondering if the horizontal growing would change the way the plant grew, at least compared to growing them vertically. Would be interesting to find out.
I was just about to top my tall tomato plants, but after seeing what you did that’s now out of the question! Good ideas!
Glad it was helpful, and hope it works well for you.
This is great! I'm going to try the elevated runners on my long varieties. I think the added time of the extra supports will be made up for in harvest time and quality.
What a great way of growing tomatoes, and they were so prolific. It makes me wonder how underutilized they are if we had all had a higher space for self-sufficient growing. Instead of growing more plants, we just allow the ones we are going to grow to be more prolific. When watching, I wondered if they could grow up and over arches. It would take a lot of arches though, with the added expense. and all that space underneath. Just a thought, I'm thinking aloud really :) . The length of those is really tremdous. Thanks for giving me so much to think about. All the best.
Arches would be interesting. I think one of the benefits of this method is that the growing tip can always grow upwards, with the stem being dropped to a more horizontal or slight slope later, which I think benefits the plant.
@@REDGardens Yes, arches have a lot of wasted space. Your method is much better. They have light all around them too
Nice. My season just starting. I dont have a polytunnel, so i have overhead wires at full arm reach. Some of the tomato plants produced weird two way branch and had to pick one to prune, as dont want a double leader. Another method i've seen someone produce super long plants by growing fewer plants, each clipped to different level of horizontal wires, like an espalier tree method. Another alternative is to introduce a second crop in the one season, which may reduce space and disease pressure problems.
I have also noticed those double leaders, or at least a side shoot that is just as strong as the main leader. Not sure what causes it, but I just pick one to remove. The espalier tree method sounds quite interesting. I wonter if it owed be a useful option for growing outside here in Ireland.
Wow! What an incredible harvest!
I think so too!
I have started hanging my tomatoes this year. Its only early in the season here in Australia but very hopeful we get a high yield.
Thankyou for all your content.
Hope it works for you. It is so fascinating that you are heading into your summer and we are winter bound.
Love your channel!
Glad you enjoy it!
This is an ingenious way to support toms!
I wonder if the clips could handle a double line so they wouldn't fall down.
I'm not sure if a double line would fit, and some of the clips that broke split at the hinge which seems to be taking a lot of the pressure.
Well, there goes that plan...
Your trials have convinced me to buy a polytunnel. I battle so many variables and this would solve most of them.
Cool. Hope your polytunnel explorations are really productive!
since you've done other tasting trials, I'd be interested in one where you evaluate the taste of the fruits ripened on vs. off the vine! I personally didn't find there to be a real difference but it is controversial with gardeners. :D ripening off vine increases the yield for sure because there is less chance for them to split or rot when they finish on a cool shelf out of the elements.
That would be interesting to explore. I do tend to leave the tomatoes on as long as possible, but do suffer from a lot more splitting fruit.
You'd probably need a sugar content meter to notice the difference, but some people (also probably) can taste the difference.
Another fantastic video, always excited to see you have uploaded a video
Thanks!
Wow they grow up really good, love to see it👍❤
:)
It is interesting to see how other growers adapt to their growing season. You must have around 160 days plus? In my northern region our growing season is typically around 110 days in the high tunnels. I have developed a system that works really well for me and I only grow organic heirlooms. For years I grew 300 single stem tomato plants per house which produced about 2400 lbs of fruit most years. I thought I was doing good. With the techniques I slowly shifted towards, I now raise 110 plants in the same space with an average of 6 leaders per plant. My averages output is now in the 4000 lbs 4400 lbs. or 40 lbs per plant. So I essentially went from 300 stems to 660 stems in the same space. It is defiantly more work and I should have bought stock in the company that makes tomahooks. haha The other import thing I do is my trimming and training. No later then July 15th I top the plants and remove any new flowers that will not have time to produce fruit in the next 5 weeks. Every week I remove about a 12 inch section of lower leaves working my way up. My wife calls this "giving them a haircut". These simple techniques shocks the plants (in a good way) into thinking the season is coming to and end and they put all of their energy into fruiting and not vegetative growth. I also start limiting the water and I stop watering within 5 days of going to the market. I discovered that the plants go into a survival mode and push the sugars out of the roots into the fruit. Over watering makes the fruit mushy and tasteless. By August 1st the plants look terrible but the fruit is just hanging in huge beautiful clusters.
We might have 160 days in the polytunnel, but outside it is quite different. But as we don't get the same dramatic shifts in weather between the seasons it is harder to put a number of days on it. Thanks for sharing your experiences, it is so valuable to hear about the details of what you are doing, and the differences it makes. I am very interested in trying out a similar approach that you have used, with multiple stems per plant and the pruning to force plants to focus. And restricting watering is an interesting one.
Can you grow tomatoes outdoors in your area? There is no way we can grow outdoors in our area . (I am in Wasilla Alaska) This is what is so amazing about high tunnels. They are a game changer. One of our key reasons for success is our long day light hours at the end of June. Sunrise is at 4am and sunset is around 11pm. If you can even call it sunset. What I do to encourage more fruit productions (stress) will be the exact same process that you can do in your area. You will just have more time to accomplish it which may actually give you more fruit then I can get in my shorter season. As the plants are growing in the early season I choose which leaders or suckers to keep. I try for 5-6. I do not allow any other suckers to grow and keep up on removing those. After the summer solstice the plants naturally recognize the days are shortening and shift into fruit production. Its hard to see the signs for the first few weeks, but it is happening. So....why is this important and how can we use this to produce more food? If you think about it, all plants have only one single goal. They MUST produce as much fruit, aka seeds, as possible to keep the species going. That is it! That is all they programed to do. They don't care about what the neighbors think about our pretty gardens or the prices we can sell the tomatoes for at the market or even if we survive. Their only purpose of "being" is to keep their species going. They have developed this system over thousands and thousands of years for a specific reason. So my technique of "stressing the plants" stating around July 1st helps with their biological process of growth. Small amounts of stress tricks the plants into biologically thinking the season is coming to an end and they in turn do everything they can to produce more seeds. So the first stress I introduce is trimming lower leaves about a week after the solstice. The plants in turn produce more growth hormones. Remember, the days are getting shorter and now they have lost some of their ability to photosynthesize light. They kick it up a notch and the vegetative growth can double in the next two weeks. Every week I do a little more lower leave trimming and the plants respond by putting out more flowers and starting the early fruit growth. About July 15th, I top the plants at 5-6 feet and remove all new flowers and all suckers. This is a big stress for the plants and I suspect they produce a different type of hormone and shift more towards seed/fruit production. I keep trimming lower level leaves and back off on the watering around 3rd week of July or Aug 1st. This is a huge stressor on the plants and you will see the fruit double in size very few days. They are convinced the season is coming to an end and they go crazy producing more seeds/fruit. The biggest advantage of "water stressing" is the plants move the sugars out of the root systems into the fruit. Every customer at the market can taste it, they sell themselves. I have gone as long as 3 weeks between watering and you have to watch this very closely. When I do water they will only get just cups and not gallons. Just enough to keep them alive. By mid to late August that plants look terrible and they look like they are on deaths door step. If I do water the plants, I only water on late Saturday or Sunday. To much water and the plants pull or transfer the sugars from the fruit to the roots and the tomatoes will taste mushy. This gives me 5 plus days to stress the plants out and force the sugars back into the fruit giving me super sweet fruit for the market. Sorry this is so long, but if you can implement a system like this for your area I guarantee you will become famous and wealthy and all the women will love you and all the men will want to be just like you. If you can remember, let me know how things go with your tomatoes next summer. John
I just went back and looked at your numbers and they are actually very good. I grow a lot of Black Krim and I average 40lbs per plant. But.....that is from 5 leaders per plant. That means that I average 8 pounds per leader which is the same as you do with your single leader per plant. I dont have any experiences out side of Alaska gardening and just I realized that due to our short seasons we need to grow our indeterminate plants like determinate plants. I'll bet with some fine tuning in a larger high tunnel you could produce 15-20lb per leader in your longer growing season. That would be something else!
@@johnmcneal9477 Hey John, that sounds very interesting, thanks for sharing your experiences. I have heard about the method of stressing plants, or at least not providing them with everything they need, in order to encourage them to focus! The way I have thought about it is a bit different. The plants are actually perennials, and expect multiple growing seasons, so have no problem growing lots of vegetation if the space and fertility is available, and will get around to producing fruit later. That of course doesn't work in this climate or in yours! So definitely something to try for next year. I do a fair amount of pruning of the lower leaves, but I tend to overwater (I think). Our summer weather isn't as extreme as yours, but we do have very long days in the early summer, about 2.5 hours shorter than yours according to this link weatherspark.com/compare/y/33067~262/Comparison-of-the-Average-Weather-in-Birr-and-Wasilla#Figures-Daylight
Hi I am India, you garden really beautiful. 🌱
Thank you so much 😊
I use the wind the tomato round the string method for mine, letting more string down from the top as required and also dropping the whole plant down a bit when the base of the vine becomes bare. But I do have trouble with all those strings when harvest is over so those clips are something I want to try. I just need to find a source for me here.
I appreciate how you always share great information. Even if I know a variety that does well for you might not for me and vice versa, it's all good. It's great to see what you are doing and recording, and learn some things to have a go at doing to see if the method can improve things or fix a problem.
Thanx
I found the combination of the biodegradable twine and the hooks to be really useful, and saves a lot of hassle during the year and time at the end of the season. The clips are an added bonus, that are useful in combination with winding up.
Glad you are getting a lot out of my videos!
With tomahooks in our high tunnel, a big help was to use a $10 old people style grabber tool / trash picker-upper. Since it extends your reach, you can stand on the ground and not have to use a ladder to unhook, unwind, and rehook.
That might work well, thanks.
you should have millions of views
:)
Tomato training proffesional i am very impressed, i try my best with 3 leaders of a cherry tomato every year but this is different.
Thanks alot for ur video's
Wow, thanks!
Your garden is lit
😀
Great Video 😊
What do you think about setting up a espalier as you might for viticulture? I can't grow tomatoes without the DREADED tomato hornworm. They're everywhere!
An espalier would be interesting to try. I am glad we don't have the hornworm here.
Thourough and clear explanation !
Thanks!
Hi sir.
What is your favorite online forum to go when you have problems in your garden? Is there a forum that has a lot of expert and lots of activity, where I can upload pictures if some of my plants have problems? I am not on social medias no more so preferably nothing from facebook or twitter and stuff like that.
Thank you.
I don't have a forum that I go to for issues, though I know that a fair number of them exist in various platforms. I tend to just search UA-cam or the wider internet. Hope you fine something that works for you.
Tomahooks! Who knew? I just might try these. Thanks.
I didn't know about them until last year, and they work quite well, especially for keeping the extra twine under control.
Have a look into planting trees the Ellen white method... usually applied to fruit trees .... however has been used for tomatoes and reports of harvesting upto 100 pounds per plant.
Sounds interesting.
I have a 6x8’ greenhouse and primarily grow tomatoes in it. I run out of height quickly and I’m not sure I have the total length required to make sufficient use of your approach. I wonder if I could do two sets of sowings throughout the year. Just discard the first once their done, especially since they hit the top fairly early. Maybe have a couple weeks overlap after planting.
That option could work. I wonder if the delay between the two batches would be worth it. Another option, which I have not tried but I think might work, would be to just heavily cut back the existing plant to a point lower in the stem. This will likely prompt the plant to sed up additional side shoots, but with the abundance of established roots, and continue to grow. A variation of that would be to let one or more of the side shoots that develop lower down on the plant grow, and at the appropriate time cut back the main leaders and let this new one take over. If this works you benefit from the strength of the existing plant, and without interrupting the harvest too much.
@@REDGardens that’s a great idea thank you. I think I’ll do a comparison with that and the new plant and take it from there.
Beautiful!!!
Thank you for sharing
:)
Could you pls make a video about how you market all that produce.
I am planning a video about that soon, but basically I have an honesty fridge, and neighbours come and take what they want, and pay what they think it is worth. It works really well in my context, and a fair amount of food gets distributed that way.
So Beautiful
🙂
Interested in your horizontal strings for hanging toms. We are starting summer in Australia and I have some in hydroponic Dutch bucket system. They are just starting to reach the top and was wondering how they are clipped onto adjoining strings. I hear commercial crops get about 28 t/ha so 28 kgs/m2.
By my calculations, 28 t/ha is 2.8kg/m2 - I assume that is field scale tomato production without supports, pruning, etc. The Dutch bucket system looks interesting.
Do you think it’s worth the extra effort to start and plant them when you do, given that the plants are growing so large that you have to lean even when trusses haven’t fully ripened?
Thinking a later start would help avoid this challenge of having tomatoes on the ground while freeing more time up for you in that early spring time? Incredible yield regardless and incredible work. Wondering how much earlier you get ripe fruit bc of the earlier planting…
Your channel is my favourite gardening channel on UA-cam. At the end of the season I am burnt out on garden videos, but yours always bring me back in and get my mind going again. Thank you for these videos, I value them greatly. I had the same issue with the string and the tomatoes in the compost, so I will investigate the biodegradable options. Keep on growing and filming please :)
Have you got the bug? I'd like to hear about your winter work and preparation for spring.
Sorry for the lack of videos. I am good and healthy, but have been taking a break from the focus on videos over the holiday season. Hope to get a video out this week, and many more in the next few months.
@@REDGardens Good to hear you're OK. I guess everyone deserves a break. Looking forward to all your new videos. Hope you're not overwhelmed by rats!
Thanks for sharing this video
:)
Just enquiring… rather than placing the initial seedling to run somewhat horizontally, would you if you could, plant it deeper in preference?
I use to plant them deeper, but I no think that keeping the root ball closer to the surface is better as that is where most of the fertility is, at least with the mostly no-dig beds in this garden. Digging deeper would put the initial root ball in less soil with less fertility and biological activity.
@@REDGardens thanks so much from NZ😀. Love what you are teaching us all
Try getting alpaca droppings for your fertilizer. It worked wonders on my tomatoes and they grew over twelve feet tall.
I can imagine the tomatoes thrive on that kind of fertility!
@@REDGardens Bett!
Very informative! Thank you
👍
Fantastic video as usual; many thanks! I was wondering if you have tried tomato grafting or were considering this method for the future.
Thanks. I did try some tomato grafting last year, but wasn't very successful, or at least didn't notice any real difference. Hope to try again this season.
@@REDGardens good luck! I hope to see more on your tomato growing experiences.
Great video, thank you.
😀
Try piennolo del vesuvio tomatoes. It's a old species that normally only grow in Italy, Naples. You can store them for almost one year without getting bad. Do some research about it, they are my favorite tomatoes.
Those biodegradable clips and twine look really cool. Mind if I ask where you got them?
I got them from fruithillfarm.com
www.fruithillfarm.com/tomato-cucumber-clip.html
www.fruithillfarm.com/compostable%20crop%20twine.html
@@REDGardens awesome, thanks
I dont understand if letting every plant to have Two growing TIPS would be simpler, i think that tomatoes outgrow their radical/aereal sweet point, so Ive found that the most critical part Is to bury as many of the plant in the starting of the season, having Also a quote heavy clay ground foot, bringing less pathologies and a longer harvesting season.
I think having multiple growing tips would mean that each one is shorter and don't need to be adjusted as much, if at all.
That trench method is how my grandma taught us😊
It makes a lot of sense!
I’d love to see where all these tomatoes etc end up after you’ve harvested them.
A lot ended up in our freezer either as sauce or as semi dried tomatoes. But most probably went to my neighbours through the honesty Veg Fridge that I have set up.
@@REDGardens Oh, I thought with all that market gardening going on, you were running a full scale farm shop or veg box delivery scheme. Good idea to run a co-op veg fridge/freezer for any excess.
@@AtheistEve I have found that the Veg Fridge is a lot more convenient for me, and for the people in my community, as I don't need to stand there or sort anything, and they can get vegetables whenever is convenient to them. I have not tracked how much goes out of the fridge (one of the few things I don't tract!) but I would imagine about 100kg of veg a week during the main part of the growing season.
@@REDGardens Lucky community 🙂
MMM I love tomatos/ I clustered mine 6 to a bush / I found extra growing at the mature to older gave a extra tartness, very flavorful tomato/, and also veggies in general / I would like to see ice plant along freeways converted to melon gardens.
At my latitude it's much easier... In Ireland it requires an awful lot of work, and you're doing it great!!!
Thanks. Yeah, some climates are a lot easier!
Great content! I am wondering do you use pesticides on the plants to keep them healthy, because adding compost brings aphids etc...? How about weeding, is it done on a weekly basis to be kept that clean?
Thanks. I don't use pesticides. Compost bringing aphids and other pests is not something I have noticed or really heard about. We try to weed the gardens weekly during the growing season.
For tunnel which pipe have u used half inch , or 1 inch
Not sure, as it came as a kit ready to assemble.
hi red, thanks for all you do, its so inspiring! I wonder if you could tell me where to get the big roll of biodegradable twine from please? hope you are well, thanks, ruairi
I got it here www.fruithillfarm.com/compostable%20crop%20twine.html
@@REDGardens thanks a million !
Would it be possible to grow these tomatoes in a grapevine style? Maybe with 2-3 levels.
I don't know, but it would be interesting to try
This system looks a lot like an industrial hydroponic setup i saw somewhere on UA-cam a while back. They had 10m+ long plants on a system lowering the plants automatically. And being hydroponic you always know the plants have enough nutrients.
A family friend had a tomato hydroponic setup years ago, and I remember the plants being that long. It is amazing to see.
I tend to leave stronger side shoots on more vigorous plants to grow later in the season, lets say at about 1m of height of the main stem - this way less vigorous plants are not overwhelmed by neighbour's shoots since the beginning. Because of limited height of the growing space I end up with several out of total 24 plants having up to 5 stems, which is great for varieties that grow well till the end of the season having those less resilient removed to give more space for the others.
That is interesting to leave them as a single stem until they reach a certain height, I hadn't considered that as a possible option. Thanks.
Hi, what gage wire are the Tomahooks hanging from?
What do you do with all your crops after harvest?
Thank you Red.
I grow tomatoes in the open and the birds get to them before they are red.
What should I try.
Respect from Africa 🇿🇦
Hello there in Africa! I don’t have much experience with birds eating tomatoes. Perhaps hanging shiny reflective things among the tomato plants will scare the birds away (I used to use old CDs or DVDs). Or netting the full crop might work, but that makes it more difficult to get in and harvest.
@@REDGardens thanks Red. I thought that would be it. Now just who uses Disc anymore.
Respect from Africa 🇿🇦
@@REDGardens ps. I have successfully recreated that hook for the string and it works wonders, only challenge is, I need to make 700 more... 😉
@@jeshurunfarm Excellent! I was thinking of building a jig/frame to make a lot of clips like that but realised it was something I didn't have time for at the moment. But it is definitely doable.
@@REDGardens you have another good idea there with the jig.
Do you do a lot of soil building?
Add compost and other fertility regularly, and test the soil occasionally.
where do you get your tomahawks from ?
many thanks
I got them from fruithillfarm.com
Which seed are u using
Hey man are you familiar with what a walipini is?
I have looked into those buried greenhouse, which seem to be really useful in some contexts. Here in my context we are so far north that the winter sun is so low in the sky in winter that most of the bottom of the pit would be in shadow for months. And we are also quite a bit warmer (thanks to the Gulf Stream) so don’t get such freezing temperatures to make digging worth while. I’d also be worried about flooding with the amount of rain we get, and the high water table. So I’m not in a place that it would be useful, but I would definitely want to try it out if I lived in a colder climate further south.
what kind of tomato variety you grow sir i like to grow also the same variety
I grow many different varieties.
How can I receive that's tomato seeds
How you make poly tunel
Maybe you can direct sow a few carrots in between those tomatoes? It's just a lot of fertile soil just sitting there...
That seems like a good option for people to try. Which the explorations I am doing, every time I add something else it adds another potential variable that can confuse any results. So I tend to stay away from that kind intercropping, unless I am specifically exploring intercropping.
I try to compost for a long time mainly in wet material and mourn also dry but it does not make me compost .
Sometimes composting can be tricky
How do you deal with gopher in your garden
We don't have gophers in Ireland, thankfully!
What's your minimum temperature there?
Most winters we don't get below -4ºC at night.
I thought indeterminates don't die. Did the frost kill them?
Yes, they would not survive the frost, and likely become diseased over the long cool months.
Hey guy! I really got into the JADAM methods recently and I think you should try it out. I do recommend watching the whole series of videos so you get the a real deep understanding of the methods, but just making JMS for me is like cheating.
I do want to give it a proper trial at some point, but will have to spend the time to really understand it as you say.
what about outdoors tomatoes?
A bit too cool and windy where I am, but I do want to try a few varieties and different methods outside.
@@REDGardens y'a its worth a try even if its cold
Congrats bro for such of succes, you are one of my favorite channels, I wanna ask you for permition cause I wanna show my viewers in my channel how I learn about heirloom tomatoes from the best posible, that would be you . but I know you tube tells me to ask you for permition. I would just use about 20 seconds bro. is it ok bro? Im a small channel from Cholula Mexico, my name is Enrique Valdivia Osor.
helo sir can you give seeds of your tomatoes please im from philippines...
Ah, sorry. I am not comfortable sending seeds international. It has been a problem in the past with the transfer if diseases. I hope you can find seeds locally.
There is a flat tape used to bale straw that some gardeners use in the US to suspend tomato plants. No clips needed. It is not biodegradable. Pretty tuff stuff & can be reused. It fits the tomohawk wire holders. Given that it is flat tape it will not cut into the main leader. It may or may not be more tedious than twine & clips.
I have used baler twine before, but not that type of tape. I find the biodegradable twine very handy, and makes cleaning up the crops at the end of the year a lot easier.
❤️
:)
My Request to your company to supply such Tomatoes growing technology to my place Bhubaneswar city, Cuttack, Khurda in Odisha state in India
advice for cherry tomato: prune only "femminella" not main plant (idk femminella how to translate from italian but i think you know what i mean) until reach the top, then NOT prune just bend (min 1.20 on video), after this let grow also "femminella" to maximize the crop. you can see all this easily in this video ua-cam.com/video/B7ZbwaGi4a8/v-deo.html she is a fantastic (italian) farmer like you...best wishes
That is an interesting option, thanks for the link.
♥️ from india
:)
put the soil high and let the tomatoe and gravity grow down is what lazy people do.
Ughhh, That sounds like a lot of work lifting and watering and feeding the plants.
All this research your doing, is something that isnt done anywhere else, i dont know why your channel isnt bigger. I hope you have all your video's copied somewhere else also for when and if Google decides to cannibalize itself.
Thanks for that lovely comment! I have backups of everything at home, but haven't uploaded it anywhere else - yet.
advice for the few
Yep
too much work!
lots of reward!