South Florida here. I have these in a container indoors, mostly because no spot outside gets more than 6 hours of light. They’ll very soon hit the light; I’m thinking I’ll need to put them on the floor as well as raise the shelf the lights are hanging from.
If yall have any better ideas I need them!
by MacroAlgalFagasaurus
11 Comments
Those things will be 4 ft tall before you know it. Better figure out what you’ll do with them at that size, then do that now 🙂
They’ll need to adapt sooner or later
You could try pinching out the top growing tip. I’m far from a tomato expert, but last year when my plants got frosted, this made them start growing side branches and there were generally shorter for the rest of the season. I may soon be in the same situation- I’m trying to grow some Tiny Tims indoors in snowy NY state.
Not always a good idea to grow indeterminate tomatoes indoors. You can grow Orange Hat, Tiny Tim or a dozen other dwarf cherry tomatoes indoors with your setup easy.
I’d put them outside, close to your house for additional warmth, in a spot that gets the most sun.
transplant to a 5 gallon or larger container. Set up a good overhead, grow light, and grow it indoors until it’s warm enough to move outside. You can successfully grow tomatoes and peppers in a 5 gallon or larger container throughout the season. I prefer the 10 gallon grow bags, but they can get heavy to move when needed. If you go with grow bags indoors, put a boot tray under them so when water drains through, it won’t make a mess.
I don’t know what zone you live in, or what part of the world. Here in Ontario, Canada it’s winter and I won’t be starting any plants for my outdoor gardens until late February (hot peppers), or mid March.
That being said, if you’re looking to keep them growing indoors under grow lights I would suggest you look into “low stress training”. It will allow you to manipulate the plants and somewhat control their height. Additionally, you could top some of your plants, so they develop more “main stems”. These two procedures together and you will be able to hold off the main growth of the plant somewhat and buy yourself more time before needing to move the plants/lights or having to buy more powerful grow lights to allow for fruiting growth of the tomatoes when you get to that point.
Oops, sorry in my last post I didn’t see you lived in South Florida. As another commenter said, use grow pots or smart pops they are amazing. I agree, you can def. grow tomatoes in 5 gallon buckets, I’ve gotten away with 3 gallon pots for peppers too. Move them to a bigger container and then move them outside when you can I suppose. Low stress training is still a cool idea for them, and you’ll end up with this bonsai’d looking tomato plant with a mad strong stem! Potassium silicate and cal-mag FTW!
You could always encourage them to be more vine-like by training them to wrap up in a circular pattern
You’re fine. I’m in 9B in Texas and will harden off at the end of the month.
If you have space to move them outside, start hardening them off and chuck ’em in the ground. Otherwise, follow the advice of some of the other fine posters here.
grey matter
You could use them as stock/propagation plants. Pluck off the “suckers” and start babies to buy you back some weeks.