How Do You Pinch Off The Suckers On Tomato Plants?
Tomatoes are hardy plants that will produce fruit even if you just leave them alone. If you want lots of healthy, delicious tomatoes, though, you should stake your tomato plants to keep the fruit from rotting on the ground, and prune the plants. Pruning tomatoes helps the plants use more energy making tomatoes, and less energy making more branches. A well-pruned tomato plant will have a strong, vigorous main stem, will produce fruit earlier, and will produce bigger fruit. Since the fruit is what we are all after, pruning makes sense. The best way to prune a tomato plant is to pinch off “suckers,” which are little shoots that grow between the leaves and the main stem of the plant. Find out if your tomato plants are the “determinate” or “indeterminate” type. Determinate tomato plants have a specific fruiting time and will grow to a genetically determined size, while indeterminate plants will keep growing bigger and producing fruit until the first frost. Wait until the plants develop thei
