What's the rules for nipping out leaves off a tomato plant?

[TracyK]

Is it the lower spindly leaves? or is it the tiny wee shoots in the join of the leaves and stem?

Yes, the little shoots in the joints, but don't remove them until the plant is fully grown. And you should - the books say - only leave 5 trusses of fruit (although being mean I always try to get as many fruit as possible).

Yes nip out the side shoots and when 5 - 7 trusses have set (ie there are flowers) nip out the top. I find that about 6 is the hieght of the greenhouse.

I get very confused about this too. I pretty much didn't nip out any shoots to start with last year and ended up with plants of triffid proportions and lots and lots of fruits, although i did nip out to let the light in to the middle ones. I had more tomatoes than i knew what to do with, from three plants. This year i intend to nip out, but im really unsure what i am doing. Is it just to prevent wasting energy? I found the side shoots provided fruit too? Why do i have to do this? Cos it breaks my heart so it does, it seems so wasteful.

I've got 8 plants starting to flower. I didn't realise you had to do anything with them. What exactly is nipping out and how do I know which bit I'm getting rid of?

I dont bother nipping standard tomatoes out, it's to give an increase in the size of the toms with a tradeoff in quantity, I don't care if they're small, I 'd sooner have loads! also if kids break the plants all is not lost, the side shoots take over. I always faff with beefsteak tomatoes though and thin the fruits out to 2 per truss to get as much energy going to each one as possible.
In commercial greenhouses they don't stop the vines either, they lower them down as they grow taller

thats interesting actually, my tomatos were cherry toms, this year i have cherries and gardeners delight which are meant to be quite small, so you would say don't bother to nip out, cos i like lots of small and sweet ones i do. I did some beefsteak ones, seeds bought in woolworths kit form last year - yuck

I think mine are small and juicy

gardeners delight are really weird -if you leave them they get trusses on trusses! I've got a new sort this year called Adele i think, thats a grower of long trails of fruit so should be interesting - I think gardener's delight is classed as a bush tomato so you'd not really do anything to it anyway

thanks for that, i'll leave them to get on with it. I still have some plants on the window sill that are looking spindly and shite, is it worth bothering with those? The other variety is a cherry called something millions, hoping they are going to be quite sweet, although they were weak and pathetic seedlings that seemed to take an age, the GD have taken over even though they were planted a month afterwards.

have you tried stressing the spindly ones a bit? ,you kind of pass your hand across the leaves, whenever you remember, does the same as being in a light breeze and encourages them to be a bit sturdier,I have no idea why it works, but there has been research on it and it works,I've done it for ages ,it's a habit now! you also need to make young plants hunt for water a bit so they send lots of roots out,it delays them getting too tall and delays flowering a bit, as soon as they look healthy and bushy, you can up the watering a bit

oh , BTW GD always overtakes other varieties, it's really vigourous, the others will catch up, esp the cherries which always look a bit pathetic until they get going IMO

funny you hoould say that, my mum always said not to water them too much, i thought she was having a larf!

Yes you only nip out "Cordon" varieties. Not sure which are which without googling. Watering should be a steady supply, little and often is what I find best, especially once the fruit sets as if you leave them for a day or two then give them loads the fruit splits.

it's tricky with the water as toms are very thirsty, but over- watering in warm weather can cause some horrible damp fungal disease which wipes the whole crop in days ( can't remember the name). Over watering can also dilute the taste of the fruit a bit, whereas a little less water gives a very concentrated flavour.

think my lovely dh does something with a small paintbrush??

ahh he helps out with pollination, not really necessary with f1's, but tapping the syems or brushing your hand through the plant does the same thing if you've not seen many insects about