Pruning Tomatoes

When a friend came over to pick up the tomatoes I'd saved for her, she asked about pruning tomatoes.  Her father had told her to take off all the side shoots on a tomato plant.  I've also heard people say you should pick off the leaves around the tomatoes so they can ripen.

To prune or not - that depends on the kind of tomato plant you are growing.  A determinate, or bush plant, doesn't require pruning.  It's supposed to be compact and if you take off the shoots you are severely cutting your production.

Gold Nugget already flowering

I'm growing 2 determinate cherry tomatoes.  Gold Nugget is a really early one (notice the flower in the photo above!) and as it's a bush tomato, I leave it alone.

Gold Nugget - side shoots and all!

Another cherry tomato in the garden is Principe Borghese.  It's an indeterminate, or vine, tomato.  You would take away the side shoots on it.

Principe Borghese with side shoots removed

That said, however, rules are also made to be broken sometimes.  On a cherry-sized tomato like Principe Borghese, I leave some of the side shoots so I get better production.  I probably would remove all side shoots on the larger tomatoes I'm growing - such as Moneymaker and Bonny Best.  And definitely all of the side shoots on Beth's Big Fat Tomato as it will probably turn out to be a beefsteak variety.

One rule I always follow with tomatoes, though, is as fall approaches, I remove all flowers so that the plant can concentrate on the developing tomatoes.  Oh!  And never remove leaves from a tomato plant. The tomato plant needs the leaves in order to grow and be healthy.  Think about it.  And tomatoes can ripen very nicely without sunshine - like on your kitchen counter.