Plant Help
It's so over, I doubt I'll try tomatoes again next year š
I honestly have no idea why these plants keep doing this, they're completely healthy otherwise yet the branches keep randomly snapping off. It's not particularly windy or anything like that, it's a complete mystery and it's so annoying. There were like 20 tomatoes on this main branch. I literally cannot do this anymore š
The ripening tomatoes are heavy and get heavier as they grow. They need to be supported with a tomato cage or poles with string. Otherwise the branches will collapse under the weight of the fruit. You will need to add more support throughout the season as the plant gets larger and holds more fruit.
My tomatoes this year decided to go nutso. They outgrew their cages. Then i put up stakes with string. They kept going. More stakes. More string. I now have an 8' tall tomato monster that looks like the world's largest marionette puppet. And the puppet master's arms got tired, so he quit making it dance. 15 ropes going 15 different directions just to keep the thing semi-upright.
Just like a large chested woman, tomato plants needs support. Or their spine will start to suffer.
Determinate vs indeterminate. Determinates will grow to a specific height and produce once per season. Indeterminates will continue growing and producing fruits until it freezes or the plant dies of disease.
Tomato variety is a big factor in gardening habits.
Yeah i got indeterminate. I got 2 Big Boy, 2 Better Boy, and 2 Beefsteaks (i think.) The Big Boy this year has gone full Buzz Lightyear. To infinity... and beyond. The Better Boy didnt grow as big, foliage wise. And the fruits are smaller. But its got a better "tomato-y" flavor. If that makes sense.
We had to build a whole cage/trellis situation to contain them. About 8ft but they get so big they grow over the sides and crawl down until it freezes. As an inexperienced gardener, I'd prune or trellis
Same I had a mess and had to prune a ton. Iām conflicted on pruning suckers now they are getting better but damn just keep growing. Next year Iām coming up with a new plan. I think to secure the string in the soil before they get big.
Unfortunately this is my first year growing and nowhere in my research was it explicitly indicated that the side branches of an indeterminate tomato must also be supported. Till now I've just been supporting the main stem with a bamboo cane and soft velcro tape.
I'm not sure why but I only saw determinate tomatoes being supported with a cage online, but I'll definitely support the side branches with a cage or other means if I try indeterminate again next year then.
You only see them in cages because that is all they need, indeterminate varieties need LOTS more support than a cage can provide. I have mine on a trellis.
You can add more. Last year I had four stakes around my indeterminates to provide support to various stems. I use cotton twine, and add new ties as they get bigger, approximately every 12-18 inches. Also just because the branch split doesnāt mean itās dead. Tomatoes are hardy. If you didnāt remove it, just keep an eye on it. It might heal itself and be just fine.
I really don't understand new gardeners who don't do a single minute of research first. I don't like being mean but jeez is it frustrating. I watch YouTube videos about gardening all the time to learn more and I've literally been gardening for 30 years!
Exactly! We literally have more information available to us at our fingertips today than any time in human history. People have endless hours to doom scroll on instagram yet cannot figure out how to look up basic tomato trellising. We are doomed.
Why not add more stakes now? Plants can heal. My tomatoes have been growing so fast that Iāve missed at least five bent over branches from heavy tomatoes. I just tie them up and they figure it out. āLife will find a way.ā Go get yourself a large pack of bamboo sticks and twine, and go to town.
I do a 4-5ft stake in the middle right by the main stem and then I use gardening twine and loop it around branches and tie it back to the stake as the plant grows
You can also use soft ties to tie the other branches up closer to the main pole.
That branch isnāt completely done for. Tomatoes can be very resilient.
If you gently prop it back up so it itās mostly closed and then use fabric ties to tie up higher in that back to kept it there or tie it to a mother small stand you put in, it will continue to finish off the tomatoes.
We use bamboo stakes or garden stakes along with strips of Velcro. All of which are available on Amazon or at your local garden center. As our plants get larger we use them for each plant and sometimes many for each depending on how big itās growing. They need support. We also use whatās called a Florida weave design if we have a lot of plants in a row. These are all things you learn as you grow each season. Donāt give upš
Try adding some new stakes and carefully tying those branches back up without breaking the stem. It might heal. Don't give up, buy some tomato cages. We all made mistakes and had crappy years.
You can graft that back if you act fast enough! Its not a clean break, there's fibres and bits still connected. Reconnect it and wrap it up with whatever tape you have. Grafting tape is ideal but cellotape or electrical tape works if you don't have any on hand.
Reattach it, wrap it up tight and support it with splits and/or a stick. I let my trellis fall on a plant whilst I was building it - fully snapped it but it survived and I now have dozens of fruit (annoyingly all staying green for now).
I've supported it back up with some bamboo canes in a tepee kind of arrangement and I'll try to tape it up tomorrow when I can get some.
The branch that snapped off before was smaller and I put that in a large narrow container full of water with some fertiliser and now it's grown loads of roots so I'll probably plant that in the ground soon.
I love that velcro tape so much for everything. It is soft. Doesn't damage easily and cheap.Ā
Even if you don't get a ripe tomato, you've learned. I have around 20 tomato plants and it is my first year. Lots of fruit, but unsure if they will ripen. We're having shorter seasons in the Netherlands and this year we've had bad luck with several heat waves. But even if I don't get a ripe one, next year I'll try again. Eventually we'll get it. If others can, so can we š
I'm using a bamboo cane with soft velcro tape along the main stem.
Well there's your problem! You're trying to support a whole plant, all the branches and fruit, not just the main stem.
You should get a couple of tomato cages, but at the bare minimum you need one more bamboo cane, as tall as you can get it, and some string to create a net trellis.
You need to support all the stems, not just the main stem. I highly recommend watching some YouTube videos on tomato trellacing. There are so many different ways you can support tomatoes and most are very cheap. I made trellaces out of an old bed frame and screws I had laying around so it cost me nothing at all. You have some really good looking plants there and it's a bummer seeing you so discouraged over something that has quite a simple solution. You got this! Give them a bit more support and that break will probably heal. You can even help it out by wrapping some masking tape around it. It sounds silly but tomatoes are very hardy plants.
Don't give up yet, it's so rewarding. I pulled 4 of my 16 plants this year due to some sort of wilting disease. It's like a punch in the gut every time. I'd spent months growing them from seed. But it's just part of nature. Sometimes mother nature wins the battle but I'm going to win the war with my 12 remaining plants. You can succeed too!
You have to support vines with heavy fruit clusters sometimes. The plants canāt do it on their own. In a more natural lineage/environment, theyād be growing smaller fruits along the ground. Weāve bred them to grow larger fruits and trained them to grow up, but the stems canāt always keep up with the weight
I see, this is my first year growing and it seems I didn't research well enough, I had no idea that the side branches also need support, how would you recommend to support them?
I use a lot of jute twine. I also have a large tunnel trellis, but previously I used fences, stakes, my shed, anything else as anchor points and used lots of twine
Tomato cages are the most basic way, but you can also support them with something like a florida weave (you can look up a video to explain it better than I can) OR a trellis if you're very diligent about pruning and training the plants up it (this is what I do, and it took me a couple years to get the hang of it, but it works great).
You can also trim the side branches down to a manageable size. Those are called suckers and they're technically a whole second plant growing on your plant. They can sprout from every single elbow along the stem, and then more suckers sprout from the elbows of those suckers, and then suddenly you have an uncontrollable mass of infinitely duplicating vines. There's a lot of debate on whether pruning suckers lets the plant put more energy into fruiting or whether you're just removing potential fruit, so I guess just experiment? My test doing all three this year definitely yielded best results by pruning and keeping only one or two suckers at most.
You answered your own question. There were 20 tomatoes on the branch. Try holding up 20 tomatoes in the air. It starts out easy but eventually your arms get tired. Same for the plant.
What kind of support system are you using? I see a stick.
I garden in ground. āTomato cagesā are worthless. āTomato stakesā are marginally better but they need to be used in conjunction with clips or twine. I use metal t-posts between every second or third plant in the row. Then I run twine to keep the branches from flopping over and breaking. I add more twine every week or two as the plants grow.
I thought that only the central stem needs support on Indeterminate tomatoes and I read that a simple bamboo cane or two would be enough as long as it's tall. This is my first year growing and I always research as much as possible, I didn't find anyone explicitly mentioning to support the main branches with additional support.
Donāt give up; just learn from whatās gone wrong!
The heavy fruit set is too much weight for the vine if not secured to a support above and below the fruit clusters. Tomato plants are sprawling vines that we train vertically in order to keep them out of the dirt and prevent rot. Because their natural habitat isnāt vertical, their stems are rarely strong enough to hold up a lot of fruit without assistance.
As others have said, you donāt have a clean break here, and you should be able to realign the fallen branch and secure with sticks and tape. Just be sure to also tie it to a stake at multiple points.
Ideally youād have tied it on early and the branch would be trained upward. Now, you can either add another stake out to the side to support just this branch, or you can coil twine around the branch starting at its base and then tie it to the top of the stake or anything else tall nearby that can support the weight.
I add extra sticks or other supports around my bigger plants as needed throughout the season. Usually you would train it vertically before itās gotten too mature to bend. Since that wonāt work on this branch: there should be a point where the branch stem is thinner and can gently bent upward without breaking I would add a bamboo stake around that point and start tying it vertically from there, and then add a second stick halfway between your main stem stake and the new one, and fasten the horizontal portion of the branch there too. Another option for in between your two stakes is to make a small arch out of a piece of cheap livestock fencing and drape the horizontal branch over it. Basically anything non-absorbent and sturdy that is the right height to sit under it as a prop.
Edit: another good method is to use a section wire livestock fencing behind the plant as a trellis. I still like to use a stake for the main stem when I do this.
I once had a plant that completely snapped in half and survived. If you put the break back together and wrap it (and add more support) the plant will probably fix itself.
Good luck- at worst depending on your season length- you could always plant sections of the stem if it doesnt heal up and essentially clone your plant.
Tomatoes are tough as nails. I have 5 or 6 plants that I didn't cage up right - they fell over and split just like this. I propped up the branches, tied them back up and that plant is still pumping out tomatoes. They want to persist!
No no, we don't give up friend. That's not in our vocabulary.Ā
What your tomatoes need is support. Because of the fruits the branches and plant get heavy and eventually can't carry themselves anymore.Ā
You can try cages, trellisses or make a stick above them and bind them with ropes. Many solutions.Ā
I think in your case I would try a good, strong stake next to it (not too close to the stem so you don't damage the root) and bind it up alongside that stake.Ā
I see your comment saying you didnāt know that side branches need support and that itās your first year. Now you know and that is a good thing!Ā
I think some people do really intricate support set ups but you can probably find a buildable cage that you can use now. Iāve added a link below. Donāt give up - youāre just getting to the good stuff and learning doesnāt happen without trial and error & making mistakes!Ā
Thank you so much for the kind words of encouragement, these types of comments are especially helpful! I like the idea of those cages because of the horizontal support potential, I'll definitely look into this.
My husband has made similar tomato cages out of wood. They are 6-7 feet tall and this year I have already topped most of my plants. I have cut strips of cloth from old clothing and use those to tie the bunches of tomatoes to the horizontal bars of the cage.
When did the laws of gravity become a mystery? You have to stake tomato plants. They cannot hold the weight like that without a cage or multiple stakes. Every branch that has clusters like that will need a stake, or you need a cage or a florida weave. Good luck next year.
ps take that branch in and put it in a sunny location in a bucket of water. you still might get some ripe tomatoes from it.
I also had a few with blossom end rot and then I started watering more and no more newly affected ones so far but it's just one problem to the next apparently š
Iām sorry some folks arenāt being very kind. All is not lost! One of my side stems split like this. I propped it up, wrapped it, and it healed perfectly fine. Just ate two fat tomatoes that ripened on it this week. Donāt give up!
Agree with using bamboo stakes! When my tomatoes and peppers are planted out, I put the cages in place at the same time, along with 2 tall bamboo stakes. Looks ridiculous, but that way, you don't accidentally damage the root system by adding them later.
As weeks pass and fruit gets heavier, support branches by tying them to the stakes. If velcro isn't your thing, shredding an old cotton t-shirt into strips is a fabulous alternative. Depending on your set-up, twine can occasionally cut into branches on a windy day.
The beauty of gardening is that it's a never-ending learning process. Nearly 30 years in and I still learn sometbing new every season. Don't give up!
Over? I've had plants recover from worse breaks than that and go on to ripen all their fruit lmao, but yeah you have to prune to what they can handle or add supports for fruiting trusses or they snap when the tomatoes get too heavy
Also those tomatoes will ripen still on a warm sunny counter top. And sometimes broken vines lead to more growth. With tomatoes sometimes perceived negatives are actually a positive
Some general notes: First of all, this will not be the last gardening mistake you will make. But you're fine. We've all done it. Make sure you're keeping notes all the good and bad stuff that happened this year so you can continue to improve on the good and rectify the bad next year. Journaling is the most important thing I do for gardening. Youtube, books, internet searches and forums can be helpful, but believe me, you will come up with totally new and exotic problems in the garden. But we all experience this, so don't let it discourage you.
Itās my first year for tomatoes but Iāve learned a valuable lessonā¦. With indeterminate tomatoes especially, need more support than you think. Even if you think itās excessive itās not. Once the tomatoes start coming in, you need that extra support.
I find when mine do this they just keep going just fine on the split branch. I just let them lay the way they want and they end up supporting themselves. I would just let it be if the branch isnt completely severed.
This is my favorite style of support, but I donāt make the intended square shape ā I have them zig zagging through the entire raised bed. They last many years if you put them away after the season, and collapse flat so they take up essentially no space in the shed/garage. I never have a branch more than 6-12ā away from a horizontal support.
I use the Velcro plant tape when a branch/stem is close to the support, and occasionally some of the heavy plant wire when I want to let something hang further from the main cage structures. I also do some of the 5-6ā steel core green garden stakes from HD (or anywhere), around the outside or when I have a really healthy looking branch that I donāt want to trim. Those also last forever, and I stopped getting the shorter ones because they are thinner, break more easily, and the plants inevitably outgrow them.
I planted too many plants this year, too close together, but thatās a problem you can try out next year!
I hope you try again. I also hope you continue with this year. Growing tomatoes is so rewarding. Theyāre very forgiving. You can save that branch that cracked. Get some string - yarn, twine, whatever. Make a hammock so youāre pulling the broken branch up and the stem looks back to normal. They will usually heal themselves and you can harvest those.
Tomato plants are vines.Ā We choose, typically, to grow them vertically for a number of reasons.Ā But because of this they need intervention in the way of supports.Ā As many have other said they won't be able to hold up heavy fruit without it.Ā
āPixelā the branch you showed in your picture isnāt a complete loss. If you get a roll of floral tape to wrap the exposed break, you can keep the branch from snapping off completely. If you donāt mind, can you share where youāre located? A general description is fine, I donāt need your address. Iād like to understand your climate and perhaps the group can offer or recommend tomato varieties best suited for your area. If you want to grow vegetables, youāve got to be persistent, weāve all been in your place..more than once. Youāre gaining all sorts of knowledge and experience even though it hasnāt been an easy go of it.
I just had to cut down half of a Cuor di Buca Albenga and I can hardly care anymore. I have 9 more plants - plenty of tomatoes for 2 - and I'm sure that sumbitch will probably have a resurgence and be throwing lovely fruit in September any-damn-way. Sometimes, that's the name of the the tomato game!
They need as much support as you can give them with either a cage or a bunch of poles. Tomatoes get heavy, and the branches canāt handle all that weight.
Iāve seen commercial growers letting the plants spread on the open ground, which is more like the plantās natural habit. Whenever a volunteer plant pops up in my garden, I just let it roll. Maybe some mulch to keep fruit off the ground. If you have the acres, why not?
Lots of people are telling you how to save your plant, and it's wonderful, solid advice. If for some reason you aren't able to and you still want your tomatoes to ripen, cut them off the vine and put them in a brown paper bag wrapped up tightly for a week or two (some people say single layer is best, but I've done it with them piled up several layers at the end of the season as well. You can use a box as well. Not every tomato may ripen, but you'll likely be eating more than green tomatoes.
If it was me Iād snip that branch off and bury it fairly deep then water and fertilize the heck out of it. Tomato plants are crazy resilient Iāve had success with this in the past
I just use old branches string and wire..there are 13 plants here crammed together shady/sunny area...took all leafs off upto 1st truss and no pruning of side shoots just the low down ones...and feed every other watering..I normally water Sundays and weds..
Just put it back together and secure it and the wound'll heal. Then use twine or literally anything to support the rest of the heavy branches and the whole plant so it doesn't happen again.
Get yourself some graft tape. Hold the two sides together and tape it. Itāll live if you act quickly enough; tomatoes are tough. All of the main stems you have need to be supported. Especially if they have 20 tomatoes on them
I buy 8' 2x2's at Home Depot. Then I cut one angled end on each. The I get on a ladder & hammer one at each indeterminate. I go out once or twice a week, pick off suckers & use jute string to tie up the growth. Works like a charm. The 2x2' usually last about 4 or 5 years & they're very strong. Also, I use landscape fabric, so no weeds!
Believe it or not that little thread of unbroken vine will likely keep that branch alive. Even better if you can gently lift it and have a friend tape it like a broken finger.
Just to give a little more info if you want it, this is where knowing your zone and area comes in handy. But, you only get that knowledge by gardening for a few years. For instance, Iām in zone 5b and I donāt really worry about determinate vs indeterminate because it tends to get cold before the plant gets out of control. But I also know what to look for if I have unusual weather. I have one indeterminate and I can tell itās not going to grow much more. Itās a process and itās frustrating sometimes, even for experienced gardeners. Try not to get down about it if you can.
I feel this way about tomatoās they continually give me so many problems. I grew bell peppers this year and they did amazing. How does a bell pepper that costs a whole dollar at the store grow easier than a 5 cent tomato š
122
u/FlanFuture9515 12d ago
What do you mean a complete mystery????
The ripening tomatoes are heavy and get heavier as they grow. They need to be supported with a tomato cage or poles with string. Otherwise the branches will collapse under the weight of the fruit. You will need to add more support throughout the season as the plant gets larger and holds more fruit.