Can tomato plants grow every year after planting them in the ground?
Thursday, February 25th, 2010 at
7:21 am
I had trimmed of the dead branches and all down low. I haven’t grown tomatoes before last year. It was my first year to plant them.
Filed under: Planting
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there may be, depending on where you live, a few suckers that will over winter and put forth some growth in the spring. It will be feeble and certainly non fruit bearing.
Volunteers is a more likely case if you had some tomatoes land on the ground for whatever reason,,, again,,, their growth will be poor and the chances of bearing fruit is very slim.
I’d plan on growing tomatoes as an annual in order to attain the desired growth and harvestable fruit. I’d also, as someone else said, rotate their location and dispose of the litter left behind at the end of the growing season.
Ahhh,,, fresh tomatoes,,, ain’t life grand !
I have volunteers come up in the spring but they don’t grow very big.
nope they die in the winter its best to rotate tomato because if you keep planting them every year it will attract bugs and tomato diseases if you rotate every other year the pests and diseases will die out
no, they die. sometimes the next year a new one grows cuz a seed was left. it also depends on where u live.
They wont grow again
But when you have tomatoes that have fallen to the ground and left, those seeds will grow for the next year most likely depending on if they root and all
No, they are considered an annual. They’re so cheap anyway, it’s easy enough to just go out and buy them again. You also need to make sure you rotate any crops that you have, just like the farmers do. Otherwise you will suck all the nutrients out of the soil that particular crop calls for.
All the previous answers looked good. Let me add. Make sure your soil is amended to provide good drainage. Mix in plenty of peat moss,compost ans sand. Also do not plant the plants too close together. They like a little wind around them. They also like a deep to the roots watering, again well drained soil as they detest sitting in water.
Enjoy the fresh fruit, nothing better
Don’t believe the naysayers. I live in Southern California and my mom had tomatoes on a south facing wall that produced for three years straight after trimming the dead stems.
Where do you live with tomatoes growing as perennials? Hawaii?
The seeds will return (in well composted, mild climates) however, they lose their vigor (size & abundance). It can be fun to welcome a ‘volunteer’ into the garden, however, always best to replant in late spring.
If you want a continuing crop of tomatoes buy the indeterminate variety.
They send out a stem and flower and set tomatoes. Then they send out shoots off that stem and flower and set tomatoes…on and on. I take my tomatoes inside in the winter. I have tomatoes all winter. When you want a new plant, bury the stem of the new shoot. The stem will root. Cut it away from the old plant. You can do this all around the plant and have enough for the next year. Or, you can take the old plant outside in the spring and it will continue to produce for years. If you buy a determinate tomato, it will all blossom at once set tomatoes and that’s it. They bred those for canning factories. The lower branches and leaves are usually infected by soil born diseases. Put plenty of mulch around the bottom of the plants so the rain or hose doesn’t splash soil up on the leaves. Buy plants with a lot of little letters after their names such as vftn. This means they are resistant to visilium wilt, fusilium wilt and nematodes etc. The more letters the more resistant. This eliminates a lot of problems and insures you’ll be able to keep your plants around for a longer time. If they freeze off, they’re done.
Tomatoes are short lived perennials. In warm climates they can grow as a perennials especially when you keep picking the fruits when they start to turn red they can be eaten when they are green too (example in asian sour soups) and ripen them indoors. There life can be extended in cold climates in a hot house/green house. Most people don’t know this but plant nurseries will tell you it’s an annual when they cannot guarantee your plants will live through the winter. And so they make more money off of you, when you think it’s dying and you throw it out. They also call plants such as broccoli and cabbage an annual but they’re actually perennials. If you keep growing them they will bolt and be inedible as leaves and plant get older. You can leave a stump when you cut the head of broccoli, cabagge, and lettuce cut an (x) on the top of the stump and they will regrow edible side shoots. You can then grow the flowers of broccoli and cabbage and collect the seed heads when they turn brown and they will keep growing flowers and keep seeding in warm climates. Most annuals complete their life cycle in a year or less. Their propose is to flower and seed then they die. Some flowers like snapdragons live longer and flower more if you cut the faded flowers before they seed. Nature does this so there will be a next generation if it gets eaten for example buy animals. It’s easier to say it an annual so they teach it like this and classify like this all over.