Pruning Tomatoes

We've had a few warm, dry days and the tomatoes are starting to grow.  We usually try to go through our tomato plants once a week and prune the suckers growing on them.  Suckers are the little shoots that grow out of the 'crotch' or elbow of the tomato plant.  You can see one of them growing below:


Tomato Sucker

It is not necessary to prune these off, but it is a fact that if you remove the suckers, your fruit will grow larger.  Each of the suckers will grow leaves, blossom and fruit, but energy will be redirected from fruit production to leaf growth resulting in more, but smaller, fruit.

All of my tomatoes are indeterminate, meaning they vine instead of bush.  Pruning off the suckers produces a plant that isn't so heavy and cumbersome to trellis and handle. It is best to remove the suckers before they get too big.  Actually the one in the photograph is a little too large and I should have taken it off sooner.  If they are small enough, you can just snap them off between your thumb and index finger.  If it gets too large, you risk damaging the plant when you remove it.  It is better to use clippers on bigger ones or leave it alone.  Better to be safe than sorry.


Snapping off the sucker

While you are at it, remove any yellowed or diseased-looking leaves.  You can either keep all the suckers and leaves you remove for your compost pile or if you have any hungry animals around the neighborhood, they'll take care of them for you!


Throw me something, Mister!

The tomatoes are really growing now and we need to do something with them pretty quickly to give them support.  In a few days we'll talk about staking the tomatoes and a technique that we have used with some level of success.