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So... options for a very tall plant

CaraRose
9 years ago

So Orange Roma is huge. Currently it's around 7' tall and outgrowing it's third stacked tomato ladder. This was a it a week ago and it's now reached to top of that support--


I'm growing all my plants in 1sf pruned. Orange Roma has two stems that are at the top of the support and one which was a missed sucker that was large enough when I found it that I just figured the support was fine for three stems. The last one is about half the size of the other two vines.

I know there's a to top or not to arguments on here. Right now my thoughts are either -- Add another level of support (the gardeners stacking tomato ladders, so I can add another, though I'm going to need a ladder to do it), don't add more support and let the vines drape, top the top two vines and maybe let the smaller vine produce a sucker or two.

My pros and cons thinking of these options--

1. Adding another level of support-- well, it's easy enough though I'm going to need a ladder. The supports just slide into one another. It may be interesting to see how big this thing gets, but being too tall will make pruning new suckers difficult.

2. Draping-- This is what I'd normally do when a plant outgrows the support. Main concern here is the spacing since I'm at 1sf. There's not much room to let it drape without interfering with the other plants.

3. Topping-- Obviously this will kill some production. Of course by pruning in general I'm killing some production. I'm thinking top the two large vines and let the third grow an extra sucker to make up for production loss.

Any thoughts?

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