There is some debate over weather to prune tomato plants or not.There are those gardeners who don't want to cut back any vine that could potentially develop fruit. I have always felt that pruning back the side sucker shoots during the early growth season will help to enhance the vigorous development of the main stem, and all of the energy will go into producing flowers from the main part of the plant. It also keeps your tomato bed from becoming a wild jungle.
The side suckers tend to grow out from the main stem at the bottom of the plant. They will also grow from thee crotch of larger branches as the plants get bigger...
When my plants are big enough to need staking, I usually go around and snip off all of the side suckers...
... and here is a perfect example of my newly staked and sucker free tomato plants. Every bit of nutrients from the soil and sun are now being concentrated into the main plants...
3 comments:
That's a good post. I'm going to pass it around.
I tend to denude my stalks up to a certain point because I interplant lots of things with my tomatoes.
in theory that also makes them less susceptible to blight.
When I prune I break the leaves and stalk off by hand, right on the stalk.
Thanks BrownThumb & Gabrielle!
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