Tomato's in Hanging Baskets

Pricy147

I have a dozen or so tomato's of various varieties (Roma, Money Maker, Shirley, Super Sweet 100s, etc) growing in my greenhouse. I have noticed a number of new seedlings appearing since I have been actively watering. Last year a number of tomato's dropped to the floor - so they have self germinated.

Rather than bin them - I thought I would buy some hanging baskets to put them in, and grow outdoors. I do have some questions hopefully some of you can answer?

• Can any variery be grown in a basket? One or two may be beef steakes. Would the weight pull them out of the basket?
• How many per basket? Im looking at a 20" container flush with the wall. Could I get three or so in?
• Do you need to pull side shoots when growing this way?
• Will birds go for them?
• Seen articales on growing up side down - but think I prefer a standard approach.
• Any other tips?
• Can I also grow chillies this way? Anyone know a good source for Naga seedlings?

Thanks!

Lotus-eater

Weeeeell, I suppose you could, it would work better if you limited them to one truss each or something and kept their height right down. That way they shouldn't need a stake to support them and could hang a little over the side.
I honestly don't know how a full grown cordon type tomato plant would do hanging out of a basket, I suspect not very well.
Other than that, chuck em and next year grow some proper hanging basket tom plants.

heynonnynonny

I was just saying over on the veg newbies thread, I had a Tumbler tomato plant and put it in a hanging basket as it is supposedly suitable for, I had to take it out and put it in a large tub - it's gone massive, no way could it have grown in my basket.

Pricy147

Looks like an experiment worth trying!

foreign_correspondent

heynonnynonny wrote: »

I was just saying over on the veg newbies thread, I had a Tumbler tomato plant and put it in a hanging basket as it is supposedly suitable for, I had to take it out and put it in a large tub - it's gone massive, no way could it have grown in my basket.

I have seen a lot of tomato plants being sold as tumbing varieties when they are clearly nothing of the sort - tumblers have a prostrate growing habit and look quite squat and 'stunted' - some of the tomatoes being sold as tumblers must be mis-labelled, or being mis-sold, as I have seen quite a few that are definitely cordon varieties!!

forgotmyname

Think mine were mislabelled Tumbler F1 somethings? Growing vertically, Not doing much tumbling.

peter_the_piper

All the tumbling varieties I've grown are just the same as the normal ones up to the first leaf joints. After that the growing tip seems to disappear and lots of side shoots appear and the plant grows outwards instead of upwards.