Well, it that time of year again.

I have about 12 indeterminant tomato plants, and I usually stake. I always start out the year saying I will prune them when its time, but after a few weeks , I cant find the main stem, and my staked tomatos end up free sprawling.

when is the right time to start suckering and whats the best method,any advice would be welcome...ill stake this coming weekend.

My garden

I played the prune the sucker game. It didn't impress me. Never doing it again! Stake and cage and reap the harvest!

And I pruned them puppies within an inch of their lives too, Twas an experiment. Do the experiment yourself! Use the same variety. Prune one and don't prune the other.

Tell me what you thought till all was said and done!

Hope others try the experiment too!

Hint!

I've never pruned, just caged them. DH made the cages and they work fine.

I don't do either, I have to many to mess with to take the time. They do fine.

This year I have my first staked tomato. It's a volunteer, and I don't have another cage. We'll see how it does. Didn't prune it, though.

I didn't prune at first, and at the end of the season, I found out that I had left a ton of fruit on the vines to rot because I couldn't spot them.

Now I prune aggressively and train them up strings. I think this focuses their attention and makes the fruit come on faster...but that's opinion and I'm always willing to allow probative evidence to overthrow opinion.

Heck, I have a lot of tomatoes in this year in several places. I have one row that would be perfect for an experiment because they are uniformly sheltered from the wind, all in the same soil, and evenly exposed to the sun. All were started from seed on the same day, All were repotted and set out in the greenhouse on the same day and all were planted out in the garden in waterwalls the same day.

There are 12 plants of 3 varieties, planted on 2 foot centers. I'll prune every second plant and train them up strings. I'll cage the others.

My hypothesis is that by pruning the suckers aggressively from my tomato plants and training them up strings, I will see earlier and larger ripe fruit than I will on the plants that are caged and allowed to grow at will in their own way.

Well...nobody told me the best way to prune,lol...but, I dont want to spend 80.00 on cages, and if I stake...I wont want the plants to reach acroos to the peppers by August...if thats the case, id be better off just letting them sprawl.

My expirement results:
One tomato was trimed and trained on string, another caged. Both were the same variaty, growing in the same raised bed.
I got ealier, bigger tomatoes, but smaller amount on first one. More greens on second one.
I think i prefer to trim them but it depends on area. We don't have long hot summer, so trimming is better for us, for somebody in area with hot long summer, it might not work so well.

Not far from where I live is a pretty well-known nursery, "Ott's," which has been around forever. Last year I took some pictures of my sad, sad tomato plants to see what I should buy to make them stop rotting! Some were staked, some caged, and some in pots.

One of the older Otts looked at the images, checked a tomato I'd brought, and chuckled. The conversation went something like this:

Ott: "Spent a lot of time tying these up, did ya?" he asked.

I: Yes.

Ott: "Fed 'em, too, right?"

I: "Of course!"

Ott: "Got 'em mulched real good. Makin' your own compost - all organic, right?"

I: "Yes."

(By this time the twinkle in his eye was just too much; he was really enjoying it, and I was probably the color of the tomato in his hand!)

Ott: "Real bushy, I see. . . big plants - lots of suckers, too."

I: "Huh?"

Ott: "Now go home and cut off everything that's not a good 6-8 inches away from the ground, and get rid of some of those suckers. They're not doing any good for you."

Then he called his brother or cousin over and they all had a good chuckle over my tomatoes. He explained that the moisture and all those nice leaves toward the base of my main stem provided a super environment for mold and rot, especially in the hot-wet-hot-wet weather we were having then, and that the suckers were like little vampires, stealing nutrients from the rest of the plant. He also said the plants would come back. Then he suggested that I MOVE a zucchini plant because it was taking up too much space in the raised bed. I told him that I'd read NOT to move zucchini, and he nodded and smiled. "That's what they say," he said, "They're really best planted where they're going to live, because they're a bit of a bother to move, but this one isn't helping the rest of your garden. It will be fine!"

He gave me incredible, detailed instructions, and told me not to mind how bad it looked; it would come back to itself within a week. BTW: it did! He further suggested that I trim away lower leaves from cucumbers, eggplants, and peas to avoid that humidity trap, and that the veggies that would grow against the damp ground would probably rot, anyway. Of course, I had to ask him about the things that are supposed to be in the ground: carrots, beets, radishes... and he just chuckled again. "Apples and oranges," he said.

The toughest thing I had to do last year was to hold those snippers, and cut off everything close to the ground. Part of me said that I was killing the plant; it was already too late, and part of me said the old guy HAD to know what he was doing. Guess what?

He was spot on. The tomatoes acted as if they were on Red Bull, and had signed a new lease on life! Within 2 weeks, there were no more rotting fruits, and the tomatoes were getting HUGE!

This year, I just started off as he'd suggested. So far, no problems and lots of pretty green fruits. I'll take advice from a seasoned farmer, even if he's amused by my well-intentioned ignorance.

BTW: He also said he was more in favor of staking than caging for air circulation and pollination, but as long as I kept the leaves and fruit from being close enough to the ground to touch or rest on it, potentially, when it was ripening, the plants should be fine. And they are!

Here in California where humidity isn't a problem I don't prune. I might cut a few leaves off the bottom but I leave the suckers on.

I just add more compost than anyone recommends including OG magazine, plant with a tablespoon of epsom salts, and spray with compost tea or seaweed extract.

We literally can't keep up the the tomatoes. The neighbors shut the drapes and hide when they see me coming later in the summer.

Use concrete wire for cages. You can reach right through the big square holes to pick the fruit and they keep the plants from sprawling.

quote:

Originally posted by Test Anxiety:The toughest thing I had to do last year was to hold those snippers, and cut off everything close to the ground. Part of me said that I was killing the plant; it was already too late, and part of me said the old guy HAD to know what he was doing. Guess what?

He was spot on. The tomatoes acted as if they were on Red Bull, and had signed a new lease on life! Within 2 weeks, there were no more rotting fruits, and the tomatoes were getting HUGE!

This year, I just started off as he'd suggested. So far, no problems and lots of pretty green fruits. I'll take advice from a seasoned farmer, even if he's amused by my well-intentioned ignorance.

BTW: He also said he was more in favor of staking than caging for air circulation and pollination, but as long as I kept the leaves and fruit from being close enough to the ground to touch or rest on it, potentially, when it was ripening, the plants should be fine. And they are!

This is very very interesting. I am going to experiment with pruning the way you said this year to see what happens. I have a lot of tomatoes planted and it can't hurt to try it.

I wish you'd post some pictures. But thanks for your input.

I am gonna stake again, and I appreciate the post from test anxiety, cause I have believed that the stems along the ground have caused me the most trouble...I have been pruning suckers for now, but later on, I think ill just prune fruitless branches...we will see.

Sorry to be so late in responding to posts, but I've been dealing with a parent who has multiple myeloma, and needed company for a few days.

Meanwhile... my poor garden! LOL! But other things seem to have settled down for the moment.

About humidity here: I never would have considered PA to have been "humid," but we've been having odd weather patterns the past couple of years: very hot, then rain, repeatedly- or days on end with very high temps and no breeze, so watering appears to create its own humidity in what I call "traps," such as the leaves close to the ground on my tomatoes, which is what the Otts noted to me.

So far, using their method, my tomatoes are healthier! I lost many of my images from last year when my computer died, but I'll gladly take some new ones. Did you want to see where I'd pruned the lower branches? At present, I just have blossoms and green babies.

-Jo

I could use some images, if you can find the time...its the one gardening thing that has had me most frustrated...alot of us live for summer tomatoes, and diseased plants are a bummer.

I have trimmed off most of the lower stems, suckers, and on some plants...a second main stem...here is a pic of my garden now...no close ups of my pruning, but it looks cool anyhoo.




I will post more close ups as the season goes on as well.

I would look forward to your pics, test anxiety.