So, some years ago, I heard that the Pasture tomato could possibly climb.

Well, I never got to try Pasture to find out, but I found a climbing tomato! It climbs without encouragement, or at least mine did in 2020. It's called Egg Yolk. It's a big-ish yellow cherry. Anyway, I planted it in plain ground with black plastic and drought without support, but it vined toward a red wire tomato cage (the cage was on a small wonderberry) a couple plants away and climbed right up to (and beyond) the top without a problem, all on its own.

I want to see if it'll climb on its own again this year. Maybe I'll plant it by some hog wire or some such and see if it colonizes it without encouragement.

As a seedling, it developed abnormally, and had a slow start because of it. I don't know if this related to its ability to climb.

Have any of you ever found climbing tomatoes?

Has anyone else here grown Egg Yolk or Pasture?

Interesting. I haven't grown a tomato that climbed on its own. I did have one that was pinched between the house and shrub, that grew up on its own simply because it was "caged" in between them.

Curious, how did it climb up? There are several method that plants use to latch onto a surface. I would imagine it wound/spiralled around the cage?

Yes, this is quite curious. I haven't grown Pasture, but I do grow Egg Yolk, but I grow on Hortonova trellis netting, and I hitch the vines to it with my Max Tapener. But I do it routinely, and never just let them go to see if they would climb on their own. I plant in woven ground cloth, irrigated with drip tape underneath. I also prune to two stems (at least to start...). So now I am thinking I will watch more closely to see if I need to hitch them to the netting as much as I do. I do hate the job of snipping off all the bits of Max Tapener tape at the end of the season, and if I don't need to use it so heavily, I will be very happy!

[mention]Rockoe10[/mention]
I'm not really sure how it did it. It looked like a fairly normal tomato plant (of the type that can vine far away like Purple Bumble Bee and Sweet Orange Cherry). It grew a vine toward and then to the tomato cage, and grew upward (potentially on surfaces it touched, possibly including the wonderberry plant and the cage) and filled the cage. It didn't have tendrils, nor did it wrap around stuff, but I felt like it knew what it was doing and enjoyed doing it. It did it fairly fast. There were other tomatoes (and wonderberries in tomato cages near and next to them) growing around there, but Egg Yolk was the only one to do what it did.

Too bad Darran (spartanburg123) isn't here. The variety I'm thinking of is Post Office Spoonful. I put it in a cage & tie it once, then it grows up my 8' deer fence, and along it. Darran grew it on a chain link fence with little or no support. Being a large currant tomato, it is probably closer to the wild than others.

These will get final leader selections,a last leaf thinning.They will cascade over top horizontally and we get a trellis of cherry maters for the next month or two.

Well, I didn't plant my Egg Yolk tomato by a trellis as hoped, this year. I just planted it in the ground, without a cage. So, I thought I'd have to wait until another year to test its climbing powers. However, it climbed the wooden fence (which is approximately 5'10" tall)! It seems to lean and grow up with long thin vines, and spread (and it keeps doing it). It doesn't wrap around stuff here like morning glory, and I don't think it is sticking to the fence with aerial roots. The plant is huge; so, the majority of the plant is on the ground, and a lesser amount of it is apparently in my neighbor's yard, too.

It has been at about the current height for quite a while, now. I think it has been focusing on setting fruit (and/or growing in my neighbor's sunnier yard). I'm tempted to fertilize it to give it a boost over the top (I haven't fertilized it in a long time).

Here are some pictures:

Here's the picture that shows its highest point (although you should look at the other pictures to see a lot more): Here's one of my tomato jungles; Egg Yolk is in the back against the fence. I actually gave the tomatoes more room than usual in this area! But, I fertilized them more than usual, and yeah. FYI: The tomato plant with red fruit in the red wire tomato cage is Clad_A. Here's part of the plant on the ground:

Wow, there are MANY tomatoes!!!!!

This is an incr-edible site! How was production?

@Rockoe10
Egg Yolk's production was very modest during the heat, but it's producing nicely now.

The other tomatoes are producing just fine, but it's difficult to get to some (most) of them! My Stick tomatoes disappeared a long time ago (they were kind of supposed to be the solution to this sort of issue, but I planted them too close to other plants). I'll have to dig them out from under the other tomatoes and see if I can salvage some fruits/seeds.

In our area the harvest usually increases (for non-stunted long-producing plants) as the season progresses. So, the very end of the season is when we tend to have the most tomatoes, historically. But, if they're super thick like that, they don't necessarily produce nearly as much as if they have plenty of space. I'm planning to do fewer plants, next year.

I forgot to take a picture, but it's above the fence, now.

Shule wrote: ↑Sat Oct 09, 2021 2:38 am I forgot to take a picture, but it's above the fence, now.

As the season closes, how do the leaves look? It's production slowing down at all?

If it's a TRUE climber you's want, try the Supersweet 100. We had a volunteer this year that reached (by commandeering part of the Butternut Squarsh trellis) over 14 feet/4.27 meters.

It won't be a part of the 2022 rotation because of the space it demands.

The Gotch

Rockoe10 wrote: ↑Sat Oct 09, 2021 7:55 am

Shule wrote: ↑Sat Oct 09, 2021 2:38 am I forgot to take a picture, but it's above the fence, now.

As the season closes, how do the leaves look? It's production slowing down at all?

No. Production of ripe fruits seems to be increasing as the season progresses. That's true with many tomatoes in my garden, with notable exceptions to that rule including Bloody Butcher, BSX, those that haven't been harvested enough, overcrowded ones, and those with a short production window.

The leaves look perfectly healthy.

Cornelius_Gotchberg wrote: ↑Sat Oct 09, 2021 8:07 am If it's a TRUE climber you's want, try the Supersweet 100. We had a volunteer this year that reached (by commandeering part of the Butternut Squarsh trellis) over 14 feet/4.27 meters.

It won't be a part of the 2022 rotation because of the space it demands.

The Gotch

It's great to hear that there are more climbing tomatoes.

Keep in mind, a wooden fence like this doesn't exactly have much to support a climbing tomato (there's nowhere for it to rest, except the two horizontal support beams, the very top of the post, and the very top of the fence), and most of the plant was on the ground, going considerably away (about 8') directly away from the fence, and a good ways away in some other directions. It didn't begin the process of climbing, to my knowledge, until it was already a huge plant. The plant isn't caged at all.

I checked it out and took pictures again. The north half of the climbing part of the plant fell over (maybe wind or something got it), but the part that reached the top didn't fall.

[There were pictures here, but they had glaring brightness.]

@Rockoe10 Here's a closer shot of the foliage.


The brighter part in the corner is because of the light (it's not chlorosis).

Ugh. Those pictures didn't turn out. Just a minute.

That is impressive greenery, this late in the season!

Another Certified Climber (here, leastways) would be the Mountain Magic https://www.johnnyseeds.com/vegetables/ ... jPEALw_wcB, which has also earned the title of The Gotch Garden Taste Test Winner three (3) years running.

Four (4) plants sprang above ~ 54"/1.37 meter H tomato cages, and kept shooting skyward after being trussed with 7 foot/2 meter stakes, after gravity took over, they settled on top of the Wisconsin 55 cages and continued growing sideways.

It's a marvelous cluster producer which also happens to be the only three (3) remaining tomato plants left standing AND producing.

The Gotch