Small tomato plants producing fruit. Leave it or not?

[skybluepink02]

I've got 6 rutgers tomatoes in my garden. They've not been doing well. They're small, even though I planted them 6 weeks ago. Some of them have started fruiting, even though they're less than 18 inches tall. Should I leave the fruit or pluck it to make it concentrate on growing?

I tested the soil and it's deficient in nitrogen, so I've been feeding it every week for two weeks. They're growing now. Strangely enough, my cherry and romas are doing fine. They're a decent size with green tomatoes all over them.

[indigolilybear]

I'd pick them off. They need to form a better root system and structure IME.

I'd be careful about adding too much nitrogen since it can make way too many leaves and no fruit (one year we added a bunch of horse manure our first year and got HUGE plants and no fruit...however the basil did great....)

[janasmama]

I would also pick the fruit off but in the future pluck the blooms before they flower if you think you would be picking off immature fruit to begin with.

Now that you have fertilized them a couple of times and they are responding I would stretch out the time between fertilizations to 4 weeks or whatever the package indicates for regular intervals.