should i prune my tomato plants?

[katie9143]

during the last 2 weeks we have had a bunch of wet/damp weather, and not much sun at all. it looks like my tomato plants have been growing up and out and the few flowers it seems to be popping out today are all right towards the center of the plant not on any of these outlying branches. should i prune any of them off so that the plant can concentrate the nutrients and energy toward the places that seem to want to make tomatos? or should i just leave them alone.

tia

[beanma]

I think this is one of those questions people are of two schools of thought about. Some people are really big on removing the "suckers" (the part of the plant w/o blooms) and some people let them grow and develop their own blooms. You could go either way on it. The people who prune suckers generally seem to feel that they get bigger tomatoes because the plant can put more energy into fruiting. The people who don't do it see it as unnecessary work and feel like they might get more tomatoes w/o doing it. I'm in the unnecessary work camp myself. You could always do some plants and not the others and compare the results.

[greeny]

I'm in the "unnecessary work" camp too! I just let them grow (tie them back sometimes). And we usually have a really good yield.

Every year I say I'm going to prune, and then by the time my plants are huge and overgrown I look at them and get overwhelmed. So it never gets done.

[lizann]

I try to prune the suckers once a week. it didn't take me too much time this morning. and I always do it in the morning. so far so good.
although, i too get lazy as the weather heats up.

[Talula Fairie]

I'm lazy. My tomato plants have a ton of blossoms on them, and I don't prune.

[Rhiannon Feimorgan]

I never have pruned in the past. I'm trying it this year though. I've had poor yields the past couple of years in our new house and I want to see if pruning makes a difference.

[milagras]

I'm kind of a mixture of both camps. I prune after the plants have been in the garden for about two weeks; then I'll let them go. Things come up, I get busy. As they mature and start to flower, I prune off the "suckers" about once a week. Seems to help the general health of the plant. Though, I've gone overboard and trimmed too many branches, stressing the plant too much.

Mostly, I think the extra attention helps me spot problems before they damage the plant. I catch bugs and blossom rot etc and wilting.

[katie9143]

thanks for the advice! so the arms that dont have blossoms are called suckers? and those are the ones that ppl so prune if they decide to? do i chop the whole arm or just after a certain amount of sets of leaves? i have 3 types of plant, some heirloom purples that are HUGE plants, some cherries and some romas (maybe 4-5 of each). I have grown them all from seed and most of them, the blossoms that they do have are right in the center. i have them caged in taller cyclinders made from metal fencing and would rather they be tall than wide, due to space constraints....so maybe i will prune some of the HUGE purples. those plants have lots and lots of arms with no blossoms and no sight of any in the future.