Tomato advice

[uraliss]

Hi Folks,
This is my first attempt at growing tomatoes and have three large moneymaker tomato plants growing quite happily. I'm starting to get flowers on them now and wondered if there was anything I needed to be doing at this stage. I have heard that some people start to "pinch out" but I dont really understand what that means or does.

Can anyone offer any advice?

Thanks

[leona]

it probably means pinching out the growing tip to stop the plant growing upwards to encourage flowers/fruit. when it gets to about 4ft high, just pinch out the uppermost tip if you want.i havent bothered though

[JimineyC]

This is my first year growing toms as well. I pinched out some of them after they developed a few flower trusses. Whether I did it correctly I don't know but yeah I just crushed the toppermost growing point.

[Bugeyes]

Pinching out usually means removing the sideshoots that appear growing from the angle beteween each leaf and the stem. Taking these away means that the plant grows straight up and concentrates on producing fruit on one stem. After about 4 or 5 trusses remove the growing point of the main stem to stop the plant growing further and then the fruit will swell and gradually ripen. Keep taking the sideshoots out though as they do sneak back when you're not looking!

[leona]

also, if you let the side shoots get to about 3 or 4 inches, you can pot them up and they will root pretty quickly. this is the first year ive done it so il see what happens.

[JimineyC]

Bugeyes has it!