Kitchen Garden Forum

I bought two bush tomatoes from the local garden centre to give them a go. One has stayed really lovely and compact putting out extra leaves and a has flowers in several areas. The other has gone crazy and is now around 75cm tall, and very thin looking more like a cordon variety than a bush variety. They were both kept in the same conditions.

Any suggestions? The compact one is Sun Baby, the leggy one is Garden Pearl.

I had the same problem last year with bush tomatoes, variety I can't remember, that I grew from seed last year but thought it may just be how they grow.

Hello Myrkk
One thing you could do with the GP plant is to cut it back to about three leaf joints from soil level. It will then break quite a few side shoots and hopefully grow bushy.
I grew GP several years ago and I seem to remember that there were some comments about this variety on forum. I didn't think much of it and this was the opinion of others. Good varieties for pots are the Tumbler/Tumbling types and for an outdoor bed I would suggest Red Alert.

John

Thanks John. Will chop it back today. I wish I could remember the strain I grew last year, so I could put it on my don't buy again list.

A very good bush tomato is Red Alert. I grow it every year. Always the first one to ripen. Larger than the normal cherry tom. very good flavour.

Planted mine out on the lottie yesterday but I have given them some fleece protection.
Beryl.