Enough? When to stop tomato trusses?

[pinns]

I'm new to gardening, so sorry if this is the 43rd time this question has been asked this year:

I have a Gardener's Delight and a Supersweet that have reached the greenhouse roof and I have pinched out the top growth. My question is: should I also take off the higher (less-developed) flowers and will this enable the lower trusses to ripen faster, or does it not make a difference?

I am worried that I am asking too much of my plants, and that they might not ripen at all due to overwork! The Supersweet in particular must have around 12 sets of flowers already, GD has around 9, I think. I feed every second watering with Tomorite and have taken off all armpits and quite a few leaves (but reading Bigmallys 'Brutal' post I may have defoliated a bit too much).

After nearly two months of green tomatoes doing nothing, the lowest fruits on each plant have only just started blushing at last, (hooray!!) I'm in Edinburgh so do I have enough growing season left to ripen all these trusses or should I take lots of them off so my plants don't drop dead from exahustion?!

Thanks for any replies.

Pinns.

[Tomatoking]

Hi Pinns and welcome to the 'Vine'!

If I were you, I would leave the last trusses on, your plant will now start putting all its effort into the fruit and it is still only the end of July. I would also leave the rest of the leaves on, as sometimes if you get too much sun on the fruit it will go a bit blotchy and rippen too early. If you do have enough tomatoes, then cut off the last truss, but it won't make a great deal of difference to how quick the others rippen.

Mr TK

[pinns]

Thanks very much for the reply Tomato King, that's helped a lot.
I'm glad I'm not trying too hard and thrashing them to death, I will put away my snips.
Do you think all the trusses have a chance of ripening before autumn?

And I wish we had 'too much sun' in Scotland......in the middle of a month long rain cloud at the moment, bbq's are just a distant dream!!

[ddiogyn]

@TK

I have a Gardener's Delight (growing outdoors) about 1m tall with 7 trusses (including 2 mega-trusses of 30+ flowers each!). Should i 'top' the plant/pinch out its growing tip?

Sorry for hijacking your thread Pinns!

[Tomatoking]

I do keep my going well into autumn, so only stop mine in September. But I do train them over the path in the greenhouse.

Obviously outside it will be colder earlier, but why not try it a bit longer, you have nothing to lose, or just try a few of them.