"on their own, without encouragement"

No. There are no growths - like sticky tendrils -on the plant to help it climb like climbing plants have.

Dave

There are tomatoes sold as "climbing tomatoes". I'm not sure, but I suspect that they don't climb on their own but, like cherries, are somewhat vining, and so can "climb" if encouraged properly by tying them up. I'd call that misleading advertising.

No. There are no growths - like sticky tendrils -on the plant to help it climb like climbing plants have.

I agree that this is generally misleading and the simple answer is no.

There are other ways to claim "climbing", too. Tomatoes will attach themselves by rooting if contacting a humid medium, and if that happens to be upward, it will climb in that sense. I have some that instead of spilling over their cages, climb upward into a tree on their own. When faced with the choice with spilling over (where a stem could be damaged among other things) and climbing up, they choose up. You might say the tree is training them, though :-)The other characteristic that many tomatoes share with climbing vines is that the will often bend their petioles around their supports. To be honest, I don't know if the plant is programed/thinking about climbing, or just shifting and shaping for better solar exposure, circulation, or other stimulus.

But the wild ones which do this more noticeably I have, I could see calling climbing for marketing purposes, if they exceeded varieties of their own species. However the wild tomatoes are classified as a different species, S. pimpinellifolium, so I don't know if I like marketing them for this borderline behavior as "climbing tomatoes" when the point is they are "wild tomatoes", specifically known as "currant tomatoes", and swapping "wild" or "currant" for climbing is a bit misleading IMO, when one describes the species. The other marketing way confuses it with domestic tomatoes which is what people have a reasonable expectation of getting when they buy tomatoes, defined by the USDA as S. lycopersicum.

Cheers

PC

I don't know about for climbing purposes, but indeterminate tomatoes are excellent at smothering other plants, competing for light. They can hook their leaves over plants, pull them down, and grow over them. Some varieties are much more aggressive in this fashion than others. Tomatoes are very good at pulling things down, if they want to.

Anyway, about climbing, I know there are lots of wild species, and little is publicly known about some of them. So, I figured there might be a chance some of them could climb on their own, or that there might be a mutant domestic tomato or something out there that climbs (with over 20,000 breeds, I'd say there's a chance). Not all climbers have tendrils (see Morning Glory, for example, which just twists around things), and not all plants climb the same way, or at the same time.

In Carolyn Male's book, she mentions Pasture in passing: "… (a rampant red cherry variety that could be used to cover outhouse structures like the kudzu vine does in the South). …"

Anyway, I'm not sure if she meant with encouragement.

Vining tomatoes (with thin stems ) might lean on another plant or get tangled with it but that is not climbing. To climb a plant has to have tendrils, (like cucurbits ), twist around something ( like beans) or stick on something ( like ivy). Tomato by its nature is a sprawler.

Sey

(a rampant red cherry variety that could be used to cover outhouse structures like the kudzu vine does in the South)

Just a hyperbolical way to say "Yuuuge". Probably could if you rolled some string around the structure... We'll call it a Salem weave :-)

I think my Sungold could grow into the clouds like Jack's beanstalk.

Ah. Welcome back, Sey...

Cheers

PC

You might want to look into "currant tomatoes" (variously Lycopersicon Pimpinellifolium), which, while they don't have tendrils, allegedly have a tendency to spiral up a trellis by themselves. The tomatoes are really small - maybe large pea sized. Now, large red berries on a nightshade are not particularly reassuring. But they're supposed to be exceptionally sweet and, I have to assume, nontoxic.

PC, I have never seen nor heard of tomato aerial roots being able to cling onto a surface, therefore making the tomato a climbing vine. Are you sure about this?

NC, quoting my comment:

Tomatoes will attach themselves by rooting if contacting a humid medium,
and if that happens to be upward, it will climb in that sense.

You mention "cling" and "surface".

A "humid medium" is something like soil or rocky ground in which the plant can start "rooting".

Cheers

PC

.

Little known fact... wasn't a bean stalk. Everyone knows you can't climb a bean vine... too flimsy. However... climbing tomatoes, that's another mater.

So we're talking about moist soil or rocky ground-like surface pointing upward? Never seen a trellis that could fit that bill.

So we're talking about moist soil or rocky ground-like surface pointing upward? Never seen a trellis that could fit that bill

No, Dan, we are talking about a hill.

Cheers

PC

Everyone knows you can't climb a bean vine... too flimsy. However... climbing tomatoes, that's another mater"

Well, to be fair to Jack who was just a commoner, just a regular little kid, they were magic beans and this was before modern scientific taxonomy. Kudzu's for the pun!

Cheers

PC

You think the OP was talking about climbing a hill? Coulda fooled me. Just about any plant will climb a hill, especially if the sunlight is coming from the top of the hill. But maybe that's "encouragement".

PC must have been talking about a "Magic Tomato Plant".

Come on! Everyone was talking about a tomato plant that could attach itself to something that then would enable it to climb upwards, making it a climbing vine. Your new spin on it would, at best, make it a sprawler.

afaik - tomato plants are considered a vine even tho they have no tendrils.

Not sure exactly what you are looking for (if I missed it) or if this might help you in some way.

The way I grow my tomatoes and other vines is up a string. Growing them in a bed with uprights on two sides of the bed connected by a crossbeam; I tie a string 1st loosely to the plant then up to the cross beam.

When/while you are out watering your plants twist the plant around the string (or visa versa) pinching off any branches (suckers) if you want to grow just the one vine. I tend to forget sometimes so I run another string or wrap it around an existing string.

btw - you can also use wire or rope if you choose. I like to use jute twine as it makes clean up rather easy. Cut the stem at the soil then at the cross beam to remove the entire plant. If they reach the cross beam, I let them grow down the other side.

The first time I every tried this I was totally amazed at how well it held up to the end of summer rains and hurricane winds with the plants fully loaded with fruit.

Same method as the one that I use. But one still has to physically twine the vines around the jute. They do not naturally twine themselves around the jute.

<But one still has to physically twine the vines around the jute. They do not naturally twine themselves around the jute.>

afaik none do.

Your new spin on it would, at best, make it a sprawler.

NC, Your spin, not mine. You took my original comment of how a marketer could claim climbing, you butchered it, added words I never said, you took it out of context, and then you asked I explain it to you. Dan read your abomination, and we had a nice Sunday afternoon rumble!

Cheers

PC

PC, I was responding to what you said about tomatoes climbing hills, which seemed off-topic. Perhaps more words should have been used, but I thought the OP was trying to understand if there were tomatoes that could climb trellises without being secured to them. With the understanding that some vine-type tomatoes may be able to thread themselves through a trellis, I think the answer is probably no.

I don't think any marketer will argue that tomatoes can climb because they can climb hills.

Dan, I outlined what tomatoes can do in my original reply. I said it was misleading to call that climbing.

Then NC asked me how that could be climbing, and I answered him clearly.

That's when you came in, assuming I was addressing the OP, when in fact I was only responding to NC.

I do not consider it off topic to discuss the limits a vine has, if the overall intent is to generalize what range of characteristics and define the habit the tomato has as a species... It uses rooting to sprawl which one can contrast with other vines which require less moisture and can use roots to attach and climb structures that dry out. That's the limit. This is important, because the OP asked about varieties. If you can generalize about the species you have the answer: No variety can do it, not even Pasture.

Hope you're ok with that!

Cheers

PC

Well, let's get away from hills, which you brought up.

But a tomato doesn't use rooting to "sprawl". It achieves that sprawling without ever taking root from the vines. I've seen a whole lot of tomato sprawling, and I've never seen a tomato that has put down roots in order to do so. That said, I agree with NC that "I have never seen nor heard of tomato aerial roots being able to cling
onto a surface, therefore making the tomato a climbing vine."

It's a stretch to say that because one can get tomatoes to root by laying their vine on moist porous surface, they are capable of "climbing". I'm confident that tomatoes that are marketed as "climbing" are not marketed that way for that reason, but rather simply because they vine. Then again, I guess one could market a trellis with moist, porous panels which might induce tomatoes to "climb". A fortune to be made, no?

In principle, I can get tomatoes to germinate in mid-air! Yep, all I need to do is have a trellis with cups of moist soil attached. Isn't that keen? But it isn't really a credible growing strategy. I think we're talking about credible growing strategies.

I've seen a whole lot of tomato sprawling, and I've never seen a tomato that has put down roots in order to do so.

If conditions are right, roots MAYbe put down during sprawling. When that happens a tomato plant can become a real monster.

If the conditions are not right, no roots - plain & simple!

PC

A tomato doesn't have to root to sprawl, that's true. But it is also true that a tomato left to sprawl will put down roots in moist soil. I've had them root through a mulch of grass clippings. Those extra roots means the plant can become even more vigorous. On occasions when I've let my tomatoes sprawl they have covered a massive amount of ground. The plants are larger than they'd be if I grew them upwards.

Anyway, this thread seems to have gone off topic and has gotten a bit personal. Probably best to just let it go.

Rodney

Yeah, I think that's why the OP never came back.

<this thread seems to have gone off topic and has gotten a bit personal. Probably best to just let it go.>

+1

ya think? Never mind, don't answer that.