Should I grow cordon or bush tomatoes?

The words on a seed packet — cordon, indeterminate, vine, bush, determinate, tumbling — describe two growth habits, and every difference in how you handle the plant follows from which one you have. Getting it wrong is the reason people either strip the crop off a bush plant or end up with a two-metre tangle they cannot reach into.

Step by step

1. Read the packet for the habit before anything else.Cordon, indeterminate and vine all mean the same thing. Bush, determinate, dwarf, patio and tumbling all mean the other. If it is unlabelled, a plant that keeps extending upward past a metre is a cordon.
2. Match the type to where the plant will live.Greenhouse and polytunnel: cordon, almost always, because you can use the height and the long season. Balcony, patio pot, hanging basket, windy exposed site: bush, because it needs no structure and stays low.
3. Work out how much attention you will realistically give it.A cordon needs a weekly ten minutes for side-shooting and tying from June to September. A bush needs almost nothing except watering and picking. Be honest about which one you will actually do.
4. Decide whether you want a spread harvest or a concentrated one.A cordon ripens truss by truss over two or three months. A bush tends to ripen a large proportion of its crop within a few weeks. If you are making sauce or passata, that concentration is an advantage.
5. Plan the support before you plant.Cordons need a cane, a string dropped from a greenhouse bar, or a stout stake driven in at planting time — put it in before the roots are there. Bush plants often need only a short cane or nothing.
6. Set the spacing for the habit.A cordon on a single stem can go in at 40–45cm because it occupies vertical space. A bush plant spreads sideways and needs 50–60cm, more for the sprawling outdoor types.
7. Handle the two differently once fruiting.Cordon: remove every side shoot, tie in weekly, and pinch out the growing tip once you have the number of trusses your season will ripen. Bush: leave it entirely alone, and put straw or a mulch under the sprawling stems to keep fruit off the soil.

Tips

• Growing both is a sensible hedge: bush plants outdoors for a reliable early crop, cordons under glass for the long haul.
• Semi-determinate varieties exist and behave like a cordon that stops itself at about a metre — treat them as cordons but expect them to stop on their own.
• In a greenhouse, string dropped from a bar and twisted round the stem is easier and kinder than canes and ties, and lets you lower the plant later in the season.
• Do not put a bush variety in a greenhouse border if space is tight — you get a sprawl at floor level and waste all the height.

Common mistakes

• Side-shooting a bush variety — Determinate plants carry most of their fruit on side branches. Removing them removes the crop.
• Growing a cordon with no support — A single stem carrying six trusses will fold over in the first summer gale, usually snapping at the base and taking the whole crop.
• Buying on fruit type alone — Cherry, plum and beefsteak varieties exist in both habits. The habit, not the fruit, decides how much work the plant is.

Alternatives

• Cordon under glass: The highest yield per square metre available to a home grower in the UK. Long season, controlled conditions, six to eight trusses realistic. Costs you weekly maintenance and a structure to tie to.
• Cordon outdoors on a stake: Works in a warm sheltered spot in the south. Needs a strong stake, wind protection and a blight-tolerant variety, and is usually stopped at four or five trusses to ripen in time.
• Bush in a large pot: The lowest-effort route. No pruning, no tying, crops reliably on a sunny patio. Yield per plant is lower but the failure rate is much lower too — the best choice for a first year.
• Tumbling in a basket or window box: A bush type bred to trail. Good for a balcony with no floor space. Needs daily watering in summer because the compost volume is tiny.
• Grafted cordon plants: A vigorous rootstock under a cropping variety. More expensive per plant, noticeably more vigour and some soil-disease tolerance. Worth it in a greenhouse border that has grown tomatoes for years.

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