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Old November 28, 2020   #11
JRinPA
Tomatovillian™
 
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: SE PA
Posts: 963
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I have double planted sungolds the last few years. That is, two starts planted a foot apart with the same cage over them, and lots of light at that spot. They produce an astounding amount of cherry tomatoes that mostly go uneaten, by people at least. They are not pruned at all, I just tie the vines that sprawl back up to the cage. One plant may well produce nearly as many, but I believe doubling the nutritional uptake area helps, just like trenching helps.

Actual twins from the same pot/soil block that would have the roots directly competing/intertwined? I expect they would produce the same as single plant. For cherries.

For big tomatoes, I have grown to like to space the plants closely and limit their leaders. I think it leads to a larger crop of earlier tomatoes than growing 1/3 of the plants in that same space and letting them sprawl more. Next year I'm planning to force many of my plants to one vine per 6", one for each CRW vertical wire. I had it halfway accomplished this year and it allows for very easy suckering once accomplished. For a round cage of wire, I can see maybe every other vertical for 5 or 6 per cage.

In general, I may plant twins when I can't decide which start is stronger, but I try to make a decision within a couple weeks of transplanting. Tomatoes get snipped without much worry because they are vigorous. I had some pepper twins this year that did not get culled back to one. A few of them had two good plants. One had noticeably varied stems, a big and a small, with only a few branches and peppers off the small side. It occurs to me that one was probably a cull that I cut down to the soil level. I think it grew a new shoot from the roots.
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