"mmarteen" wrote:

I have been watching a lot of garden shows this season (Martha, Rebecca,
Victory Garden, HGTV etc.) and I recently heard two things about pruning
tomatoes. One was that you should cut all side branches from tomato plants.
Not laterals but if there are laterals that branch out further. Supposedly
these just suck energy away from tomato production.
I've also read that you should remove "suckers" but ONLY on
indeterminate (vining) plants. They are the shoots that sprout from
the V-nothces of leafy laterals (between the branch and main stem).
One source said these will only be leafy stems. So the best action is
to pinch them out and let the plant concentrate on its first fruit
bearing laterals.

In Sq.Ft.Gardening Bartholemew explains that these will produce an
entire new vine, eventually with its own laterals (every third one
bearing fruit). However, you may not have enough season or energy to
produce ripe fruit on every laterals on a very tall vine. Somewhere I
read the vining type can be grown as a bush by terminating the main
stem and letting the suckers mature--therefore producing a bush form.
Don't know how reliable that second bit is-but it makes sense.

Determinate or bush plants should not pruned, since they grow to a
certain size (2-3ft) naturally. You need to know which you have. Seed
packets or the purchase source should tell you which it is. Once
grown you can differentiate them (too late) bush/determinates end the
branches with flowers, while vining produce short stems with flowers
along the branches.
Secondly, somewhere it was said that you should lop off the first blooms on
a tomato plant because it will ensure bigger better tomatoes down the road.
It seems to me that if this is true, it might only work for indeterminate
tomatoes not determinate ones.

Can anyway shed light on either of these two pieces of wisdom?




"MLEBLANCA" wrote in message
...
In article ,
(Fleemo) writes:

Following the advice in the book "Square Foot Gardening", I've planted
my tomatoes closer together this season than ever before. Now I have
six large tomato plants all growing together to form one giant tomato
bush. Should I prune the tomato plants back to prevent overcrowding
of the limbs?

-Fleemo


If the past three days are an indication of summer-to-be, then you
shouldn't
prune at all. Tomatoes will be sunburned without a good cover of leaves
in our 100+ temps.
If later on, it seems to be too much of a jungle in there, you can
selectively
prune off a few leaves to let in some air and light.

Emilie
NorCal



DiGiTAL_ViNYL (no email)