Allotments 4 All

On impulse yesterday I visited a nursery in the country where they grow heritage toms. The nice guy said they had sold out all bar a few with no labels on, and he sold me 24 lovely plants for a fiver :o ;D He said to take photos of the ones I liked and bring them in for identification next year.
I asked if there was any way to tell cordon from bush, and he said NO!

It's my first year growing toms, so if it were you ... would you grow them all as cordons (pinching out shoots) or would you just let them all romp (like bush toms)? Or do you know a way of identifying which is which?

:P :)

If I don't know, I let them bush.  I grow enough plants that by having less trusses per plant isn't really a concern.

Most heritage varieites are indeterminate, it is only with mechanical picking that bush toms really took off, if it should be a bush you will just get less fruit. If you want the best of both worlds you could let two or three side shoots grow up to about 6' with the main like a double cordon fruit bush and treat each stem as a cordon.... works well if you have the space..
;D

I have a few mystery plants too, thanks to m daughter removing labels, I just hope she hasn't swapped any about.

Anyway I treat them as bush, but I'm not deshooting anyway.

Mine are all outdoors (so possibly not relevant to you), but I'm growing everything as bush and pinching off after 4-5 trusses. That should give me plenty of toms, and green ones at the end of the season for chutney.

I`m with saddad on the `Heritage` thing. It`s a pain when the labels come out-I supply a shop and all too often I turn up to see how things are going only to find somehas has taken out the label and not put it back in the correct pot >:(

Thank you for all your suggestions, I will plant outdoors tomorrow and run them up strings, maybe let three or so shoots per plant have their way to five trusses ::)
Just love the idea of waiting to see what's going to fruit up! 8)