Question about tomato plants: pinching out and ripening

[IndigoElectron]

Hi everyone. I'm new to the forum and can't express how excited I am at the prospect of growing my own! I'll introduce myself properly on the newcomers board when I have more time, I have a lot of questions, but in the meantime I have some questions about my tomato plants.

I was given some small tomato plants a couple of months ago, and it took me a while to get round to re-potting them, they were probably in the small pots for about 3 or 4 weeks. When I did re-pot them (in 30 cm pots), they grew really quickly and are now huge! I'm learning as I go along though, and as a result they have only just had their first feed, plus there are a couple of rather large side shoots, although I did try to remove these.

All four plants are now flowering, and two of them have some small green tomatoes on them, but only two of the plants have fully formed trusses, though I can see others developing. I'm wondering though if I left it too late, and if I now need to pinch out the tops of the plants and try to ripen what is there. Or if I leave it a bit longer, will I get more tomatoes? I'm going to feed them weekly to try and help them along, but I'm not sure what else to do. Next year I will know more and will hopefully get a better crop

Thanks in advance for any advice.

[WendyC]

To answer your questions I've a few more for you! Firstly where are you as thus will have a bearing on the length of your growing season. If you add it to your profile we won't keep asking. Are the tomatoes inside a greenhouse or outside, hopefully in a sunny spot? Lastly do you know what variety they are, or whether they are cordon or bush tomatoes?
I would tend to think tomatoes forming now aren't likely to ripen and would, as you suggested, focus on getting the ones you do have to ripen. It may be a small crop this year but all the more delicious for it.

[Florence Fennel]

Hello Indigo and welcome to the Vine. I agree with Wendy, we need a bit more info from you about your tomatoes before we can help, but you must be doing something right if you've got flowers and fruit!

[IndigoElectron]

Thank you both for your replies! And sorry, should have realised I'd need to give more information :-) I'm in East London, we've had a nice hot summer but the weather hasn't been great the last couple of weeks. I'm hoping that we haven't seen the last of the sunshine. The tomatoes are all cordon varieties, they are outside against the wall of the shed, facing East. They get quite a bit of sun during the first half of the day.

[IndigoElectron]

Oh, and I can't remember what the varieties are, though I can pop out later and check. I do know one is Gardener's Delight and I think another is San Marzano or something like that.

[WendyC]

You are right to remove the sideshoots. If they won't snap out then use your scissors. The forecast looks good for next week so that might spur them on a bit. You can feed more frequently than weekly, I think I'd go for twice a week. As for whether the flowers will make fruit which will ripen now I don't know. You've nothing to lose so I'd leave the ones with no fruit to get on with it and see what happens. The ones which have fruit I think I would cut my loses and cut the top out. You can remove a few leaves around the trusses so the sun gets on them. Fingers crossed.

[esbo]

A lot of mine face west, which I think is better than east because they the sun when it is warmer, but then again in the morning they get neither sun nor much heat. I find the west facing stuff does better but then it is not a straight comparison because my east side is very shaded with an over hanging neighbours tree (I must chop it down when they are out lol).
It is exciting seeing your first home grown tomatoes, the first thing I do in the day is check in there progress
A lot depends on the weather and even if you do not have much success this year (I am not saying you will not, it all depends) it is a great learning experience and it will give you an incentive to make an earlier start next year.
Personally I do not understand the logic of chopping bits off the plant, I find it very hard to do this to mine, hence I have bit of a jungle in places , I have cut some suckers out that grow in the pit of branches thought and I did cut the top off a few, but I have left others to their own devices. I have a variety of different plants which grow in different shapes so I just play it by ear so to speak, if I think I am gona feel bad chopping something off I leave it on.
Maybe I am not doing the right thing, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating and if it does not turn out well, fair enough I will be a bit more of a pruner next year.
For me part of the fun is in the learning, if I am doing it wrong at least I will have first hand proof, otherwise I will forever be in doubt.

I have already had some fried green tomatoes with salt and pepper (a few had a bit of blossom end rot, so I picked and the cut the rotten bottom off and fried the rest - delicious!!).

I can see the logic in cutting off tomatoes which will not ripen ( and remember they do not have to ripen on the plant) but I fail to see the logic in cutting off the green bits, because a plant gets it's energy by photosynthesis from the sun, and photosynthesis happens only in the chlorophyll which is the green bit of the plant. You can feed all the fertiliser in world to plant in a dark room but it will not grow. A plant needs nutrients as well as the sun of course.


However this is my only my second year at this and mine did not do very well as they were hit by disease last year, it was very wet and sunless that year though + I started rather late. Plus this year I have been giving then some natural liquid fertiliser, which has produced huge amounts of green as well as a lot of healthy looking tomatoes. Granted only a few of the small cherry type have ripened so far, but there is lot of time left and good weather forecast.


[update to post which I wrote out yesterday]

I found a few more 'hidden' cherry tomatoes which were low down and hidden and had ripened which was pleasing so I thought I would have a 'poke around' low down in the tomato jungle to see if there were anymore.
Much to my surprise I did find another ripe tomato but it was not the cherry I expected it was a larger type a Tigerella.
That is my first 'big' (Tigerella as more medium than big) ripe tomato so I am very very pleased with that. None of my big ones successfully ripened on the vine last year, I was not growing Tigerella last year though.

One thing worth mentioning though is that pretty much no pruning or pinching out was down on this plant. I know that because it was right at the back of the 'jungle' near the fence and really hard to get to even to water. However I do not think there is a lot of other fruit on the plant - actually I just had a look and there is quite a lot of fruit on the plant, it is quite hard to see because it is rather other-whelmed by a sprawling Alicanti tomato plant in from of it.

So I am not too sure what to make of that as to why that one ripened, maybe it was getting less of the natural nitrogen fertiliser. Maybe it was nice and warm buried down in that jungle?

I have left it on the plant, it could so with a few more days ripening, but I hope to post a picture later. Sorry of this post is confusing, I am confused too!!

Here is the picture!!




It is quite ripen, all of the others are green, not a hint of red, so I am not sure how long it has been ripening. Hope it tastes as good as it looks, not sure I can resist the temptation to pick it and see!

[WendyC]

Glad you are enjoying growing your tomatoes. I would agree there is no point in chopping leaves and stems of with no overall plan, however depending on the variety some careful pruning can help focus the plants energies on growing a quality crop. Cordon tomatoes are a good example of removing the sideshoots, not suckers, they would come from below soil level. Removing a few leaves around the fruits helps the sun to ripen them and once the weather gets damper stops moulds forming by allowing air to circulate. I would agree removing lots of leaves would decrease the amount of chlorophyll available for photosynthesis, but at this point of the season we are not particularly wanting the plants to grow but the fruits to ripen. The joy of gardening is that they are your plants and you can grow them however you like!

[WendyC]

PS don't pick your Tigerella yet it's got a way to go!

[esbo]

Glad you are enjoying growing your tomatoes. I would agree there is no point in chopping leaves and stems of with no overall plan, however depending on the variety some careful pruning can help focus the plants energies on growing a quality crop. Cordon tomatoes are a good example of removing the sideshoots, not suckers, they would come from below soil level. Removing a few leaves around the fruits helps the sun to ripen them and once the weather gets damper stops moulds forming by allowing air to circulate. I would agree removing lots of leaves would decrease the amount of chlorophyll available for photosynthesis, but at this point of the season we are not particularly wanting the plants to grow but the fruits to ripen. The joy of gardening is that they are your plants and you can grow them however you like!

"Removing a few leaves around the fruits helps the sun to ripen them" well that seems to be contrary to my experience, my ripened strawberry has a fence behind if stopping sun form the east and a sprawling Alcanti to west blocking sun from the west and several tomato plants blocking sun from the south (it is near ground level).

Indeed this is a picture of the spot where it is (unfortunately the image is rotated), of course you can not see the tomato because it is buried in that dense undergrowth, I only found the tomato because I stuck my hand in and moved some of the undergrowth aside.

So my tomatoes certainly do not need the sun, indeed I have lots of similar tomatoes which get much more sun and they are still green.

[Potstubsdustbins]

I give up, I just give up.

Potty

[WendyC]

So most people had a poor crop last year because.....
After 30 years of growing tomatoes I assumed it was due to the lack of the yellow circle is the sky. Silly me.

[esbo]

My toms will be grown on the basic of scientific experiment not hearsay.

"To heal a sore throat, simply apply salt herring to the soles of the feet"

Anyhow speaking of scientific evidence.

Tomato Pruning

Removing side shoots may reduce overall tomato harvest. In fact, in a study by Purdue University, and published in Organic Gardening Magazine, scientists found that removing side shoots was shown to increase the average fruit weight some of the time but did not increase the total harvest for each individual plant.

[esbo]

So most people had a poor crop last year because.....
After 30 years of growing tomatoes I assumed it was due to the lack of the yellow circle is the sky. Silly me.

Well that was my first year!!
I already seem to be doing better this year - unsurprisingly with the better weather.

[esbo]

My tomatoes shalt grow as the good Lord intended

I am a tomato fundamentalist!!!