Tomato pruning... I may have gone a little crazy...

acara wrote:Yep ... once you "top off" the plant and get through your first harvest, you can start playing the "where do I want fruit" game with indeterminate toms.

I usually let a few selective suckers towards bottom/middle live, and train them out/up.

If yr using cages, I would start at the first ring from the bottom and go up to about 1' from the top. I also direct the new growth to the outside edges of the cage/trellis.

Normally by the second round of fruit, I can have the tomatos where I can see them all, access them easily as the develop and harvest them without a lot of reaching/bending.

The second wave typically bears beter/larger fruit for me too, since roots are established & there isn''t as much of a battle between plant growth and fruit development.

acara wrote:I'm a "compulsive-cutter" by nature, to the point that my family does not allow me to touch anything in the yard (other than my tomatoes), without supervision.

At a minimum, I cut my tomatoes before transplanting, remove first buds, trim for suckers & disease daily and "top them" at the top of trellis/cage .... plus any maintance "thinning" that I feel necessary (if it's not load-bearing, doesn't grow vertical on the support & doesn't bear fruit .... it gets clipped).

You should be fine with the occasional "cut-back" ....at least as far as the tom's are concerned.

boffer wrote:

acara wrote:Yep ... once you "top off" the plant and get through your first harvest, you can start playing the "where do I want fruit" game with indeterminate toms.

I usually let a few selective suckers towards bottom/middle live, and train them out/up.

If yr using cages, I would start at the first ring from the bottom and go up to about 1' from the top. I also direct the new growth to the outside edges of the cage/trellis.

Normally by the second round of fruit, I can have the tomatos where I can see them all, access them easily as the develop and harvest them without a lot of reaching/bending.

The second wave typically bears beter/larger fruit for me too, since roots are established & there isn''t as much of a battle between plant growth and fruit development.

I'm only 3,000 miles away and don't understand a word of what you are saying. One of us must be on a different planet! I'm still putting cloches on my toms at night. Second wave? Hrrmmph!