Hi I'm Erin and this is Our Wyoming Life
Every year it’s a race to the tomato market.
Every vendor wants to be the first to bring the delicious fruit and reap the rewards of
their hard work.
We have a little over 6 weeks until the first market of the summer season.
Hopefully we will be the first with tomatoes and even if we’re not we will produce an
abundant crop of one of the most sought after farmers’ market crop.
We have a lot invested into our tomato crop here at the ranch.
A majority of the space in the high tunnel is devoted to them.
They are also the first seeds that get started in February.
From February until October they require almost constant and daily attention.
There are a few things every grower can do to help maximize their production.
In episode 26 we talked about how to plant tomatoes to maximize nutrient and water intake.
Now it’s time to start stringing and suckering the plants.
Once they reach about a foot tall and the stems are nice and sturdy I’m ready to put
them on the strings.
No tomato cages get used here in the high tunnel.
Only baling twine.
Any kind of sturdy rope or twine will work.
Before we get to work I want to remind you that suckering tomatoes only works on indeterminate
tomatoes.
If you grow any sort of determinate tomato you do not want to remove the sucker from
the plant.
Indeterminate are a continuous vine.
We want to encourage them to grow up and keep fruiting.
Not grow out.
First step is to anchor the string to the stake that is placed in between the tomatoes.
1 stake can be used to anchor two tomato plants.
I pull the string down to the tomato and then over to the stake and tie a knot.
Then simply wrap the tomato around the string.
All the way to the top.
Once the tomato is wrapped the suckers can be removed.
The suckers grow in the space between the main stem and the leaf.
Since these are relatively small they can just be pinched by hand.
Later in the season a pruner or knife might be required if the suckers are large.
Start at the bottom and remove all the suckers on the way up.
Be careful to not remove the top sucker.
Removing the top sucker will temporarily halt the growth of the plant.
If you do accidently remove the top sucker or break it while wrapping the tomato you
will just have to wait until a new sucker grows and then use the new sucker as your
main vine.
Every year I break a few tomatoes.
It happens so don’t get too stressed out about it.
The plant will continue to grow in time.
So just say a cuss word or two and move on the next plant.
I usually always wrap and then sucker to help with this problem.
That way if I do break the top there’s another sucker there waiting to take the lead.
Also this is something that needs to be done pretty consistently.
The vines are more flexible when they are smaller and it makes the job a lot easier.
Every Monday is tomato day for me.
I usually come out very early in the morning to beat the heat.
There’s a few reasons why I sucker the tomatoes.
The main reason is that it helps with production.
You’ll get larger fruit and more blossoms per blossom set.
When you prune the suckers it forces the plant to focus on making fruit.
Not a bunch of foliage.
Each sucker that you remove is essentially another tomato plant.
If you were to put it in rooting powder and stick it in the ground it would grow.
I don’t want a jungle of tomato vines.
I want lots of big tomatoes.
Probably the second most important reason to sucker for me is air flow.
It’s hot in the tunnel and the humidity is also higher.
Air flow becomes something that needs to be taken into consideration.
The thinner the tomato vines the easier the air can move.
This helps prevent diseases and pests from attacking the plants.
Another benefit of pruning suckers it that it allows more light to be exposed to the
fruit.
More sun on the green tomatoes will help them ripen faster.
That helps me be the first to market with tomatoes.
With 6 weeks until market I don’t know if I’ll have tomatoes the first week.
The plants have a long way to go but they are setting blossoms and growing at a tremendous
rate.
We’ve had a pretty cool spring so far which has kept them on the slower side.
Fortunately everyone in the area is dealing with the same weather conditions.
If I’m not the first with tomatoes it’s not the end of the world but it’s something
I strive for every year.
Having a monopoly on a crop is never a bad thing.
It’ll probably only last for a week or two at the most but it would be awesome.
If I were growing tomatoes outside, they would probably only have been in the ground for
about 10 days now.
So I’m definitely ahead of the game because of the high tunnel.
Tomatoes are a pain but in my mind they are the crown jewel of the garden.
I can’t wait to eat some!
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