Tomato Plants

[Maverickpro201]

My tomato's this year are growing super tall. I am talking 6' to 7' tall . Full of blooms and making tomato's. Question is can I cut the tops off of them, with out hurting the plant and the harvest? Have them in wire surroundings and have had to add poles to tie up plants. 

Thanks

[Dutch]

That is usually a late season technique.  I’ve never done it.  Find your local MU extension or master gardener place and ask them.

[rps]

Topping the tomatoes now pretty much stops further blossoms forming and turns the plant to growing what's already set. That is why you top them a few weeks ahead of the usual first frost.

[Maverickpro201]

Darn it, I guess I will be getting up a ladder to pick tomato's this year and cutting some long poles, so I have at least 8ft out of the ground.  

[tjm]

Build a horizontal trellis with your stakes/poles/macrame cord, I do this every year. I transition to horizontal at about shoulder height and often "stack" vines from two plants on the same section of trellis/rack. I've always wondered at those little funnel shaped tomato cages as my plants would have out grown them before reaching bloom stage. Better caging can be accomplished with cattle panels set parallel on T-posts about 2' apart with the plants in between.

Vining tomatoes are called "indeterminate" because they continue to grow and produce until frost kills them. Fed and watered well they grow long and wide.

The tallest tomato that I ever saw was many years ago when my uncle got into an argument with his best pal over pruning suckers and as the result on a bet, he set one tomato at the end of his house and fed it heavily with sheep dung. He would prove that an unpruned plant could produce more than a pruned one. That plant grew so rapidly that uncle started driving nails in the house wall and tying the vines to them until the entire gable end of the house all the way to the roof. Could not see the house at all and had to use ladders to harvest, but he got bushels of tomatoes off that single plant. Aunt canned twice as many as normal and they gave tomatoes away to others through out the summer.

[ness]

A couple things come to mind. First of all, I think you want to do something because super-tall tomatoes will be a problem. So, don’t just sit back and hope. My ideas:

1. If you can, move your cages a few feet so that the plants grow at an angle rather than straight up, that can give you some room. Sooner is better as it will be harder the longer you wait. 
 

2. You could lop off some of the top growth and encourage a lower  sucker or two to become the main stems. That will set things back a bit but might be worth it in the long term. I had a main stem snap due to high winds a couple weeks ago. I cut it and hoped a teeny sucker below would take off. It’s beginning to look like it will work, but it’s gonna be a bit. 
 

Good luck. 

[tjm]

As I said, I always make mine run horizontal at an easy pick height, don't like to bend over, nor to use a ladder; don't know why but my vines are always 12'-15'.  But if you do cut, you can make every cut piece into a  new plant. I've rooted a single leaf and grew it to harvest, fruit same as the parent plant. Come to think of it though a ladder would make a good trellis if supported at a convenient height.

[ness]

Running horizontal sounds great, if you’ve got the room. Honestly, I haven’t heard of that in the context of home gardening, but I know commercial growers grow everything horizontally. 

[Terrierman]

My two tomato plants are exactly the opposite.  Bushy as all get out, loaded with tomatoes and only one vine tied to the trellis.

[tjm]

Determinate/bush tomatoes  do that just get so tall and fruit all at once, indeterminate/vine tomatoes grow until frost and fruit all season. I just don't recall that I ever planted bush types. Probably because I use varieties that "we  have always used"; and that is because I have an idea what to expect from them. I also prefer staggered fruiting.