A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion The Food Garden Forum The Tomato Forum Distinguishing cherry tomatoes from normal tomatoes?

Hi there,

I planted a bunch of cherry, bush and normal tomatoes, but lost the order so I don't know which is which.

Now I want to prune them, but heard that pruning cherry or bush tomatoes isn't a good idea.

Is there any way I can tell the plants apart before having to wait for the fruit to develop?

my large cherry's are more vine like than my better boys.
but, that's about all I can tell you.

It depends what kind of cherry tomatoes you are talking about. Normal indeterminate ones (that don't reach a point and stop growing/don't produce all at once) are just like regular tomatoes and they can be pruned. Determinate tomatoes, (bush, paste, patio types) don't need pruning unless you want to pinch them back for some reason. If you just planted normal tomatoes and normal cherry tomatoes those ones will be taller and spindlier than the bush/paste type. You should be able to tell indeterminate from determinate pretty easily. The determinate (bush) are stocky and the other are lanky.

hmm, all 7 of my plants are pretty stocky and robust, but that's because I have them in a makeshift greenhouse I built. They were pretty lanky before, but I planted them deeply, and now they are all quite beefy. I know that within that mix are 3 different sorts: cherry, normal and bush tomato.

The only difference I can tell right now, is that on some plants the tomato vines are located on the stalk itself, and on others the vines are on the branches...

The cherry I am growing are all on the branches and they are grow on each side of the branch (2 short rows) with about 8 on a row. I will get some pics soon ;)

My 8 foot tall cherry looks like this below


and side view at the base

nice jeff. but can you resize your photos? we restrict them to 640x480. thanks!