Kitchen Garden Forum

Hi, I’m extremely new to growing veg. I have planted too many tomatoes in one of my grow bags, I did it because grow bags at the time were extremely hard to find and expensive due to the virus. Anyway all they look healthy but crowded, I have 5 in a tomorite xl bag, two of them are red robin which I understand are bush plants, the others are Shirley. I planted the plants just under 4 weeks ago and they all seem to be growing well, all are flowering and I have 3 tiny toms of one of the Shirleys, I was wondering if it would be ok to remove the red robins and plant them in a pot? Or is it too late?

I have another question, there’s a lot of foliage on all of my tomato plants, should I remove some leave and branches.... I have been removing tiny suckers and I am using string as support.?

Thanks in advance

Three tomato plants per grow bag is the norm, so I would certainly remove two of them and replant them. They should replant quite happily but it may be difficult to extract them from the growbag at this stage! I would not remove any leaves now because the plants will still need them - remove them when they start to look tatty and block the sunlight off the ripening tomatoes.

Dear Fatfrodo,
what you could do is make a growbag sized shallow frame about 10cms or four inches deep which you then line with an old sack or polythene. Fill it full of compost (at least another grow bag's worth) and slide the bag with the tomatoes on top. The tomatoes as they grow will root down into the lower layer of compost and carry on growing. It will have the added benefit of getting the bush tomatoes up off the floor a little which will allow them to grow better. Once the top bag is in place you may have to lift it a little to make some holes in the bottom to allow the roots access to the new compost. You could call this an ad hoc form of ring culture.
Regards Sally Wright.

Welcome to the forum.
We were all new to growing fruit & veg at some point. I still need to ask questions and I have had my allotment since 2006.