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Vining tomatoes horizontally, thoughts and experiences?

I am working with students in a greenhouse that has shelving units each shelf is about 3' high. I'm concerned that this will not be enough room for cherry tomato plants to grow fully. Has anyone experimented with vining tomato plants horizontally, once they've grown vertically for a bit? I was thinking I could tie the plants as they grow to the bottom of the shelf above them.

Thoughts?

The photo is the shelving unit that I referenced; there are six of them in the greenhouse. Alternatively, I could use the top shelf of the unit but I have reservations about that. I do not want students to need to constantly climb to access the tomatoes and I fear that it will be too drafty with the ventilation window parallel to the top shelf.

Tags: greenhouse, horizontal, tomatoes, vining

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Permalink Reply by Blair Eckman on December 4, 2012 at 2:16pm

I can't imagine why it wouldn't work. Tomatoes, especially cherry tomatoes are resilient plants.

My only worry is that the plants above would shade out the plants below.

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Permalink Reply by Emily Landseidel on December 4, 2012 at 4:15pm

Blair, Thanks! I am a bit concerned about that too. Although, this time of year the sun is pretty low in the sky and it seems like they are getting a decent amount of sun regardless of the shelves above them. Should be interesting to see what it all looks like once we have seedlings into the larger containers!! It's a great experiment to say the least!

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Permalink Reply by Stephen Bartels on December 4, 2012 at 5:38pm

We had 'wild' tomatoes outside that grew sideways when they grew wild in a planter area of about 3 ft wide.(we missed one tomato that fell off). They ran along the ground just fine and even grew under a few boards with no ill effects. I don't see where the shade will be a problem. Go for it you might be surprised.