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Re: Tomatoes

>"Pinch out the top of the plant once it has grown 4 flower bunches. Now the
>plant can ripen its fruit instead of growing taller."

This is maybe a step in the right direction, but not optimal.
I'd like to illustrate first what I do personally:

After the indeterminate tomato plant has set 5 flower bunches
(take 4, or 6, if you like) I pinch out all the upcoming flower bunches.
This is necessary in the climate of Switzerland to get ripe tomatoes;
if you let the flower bunches sprout, you certainly will have a lot of small,
green, unripe tomatoes in autumn, but this is not what we want, isn't it?

Now what's the difference? With the method above, the plant can grow further,
and especially, it can make new leafs. Photosynthesis takes place in the
leafs and is necessary to ripen the fruits. In wet weather, older tomato
leafs turn yellow to brown, and don't contribute anything to ripening,
so the plant cannot ripen the fruits if the top is pinched.

After all, what you do with tomatoes depends strongly on your local climate.
If the summer is hot and dry, you can grow indeterminate tomatoes
untrellised and totally unpinched on the naked ground,
as I saw in southern Italy with the San Marzano type (Watered and fertilized).



Andreas


-------------------------------------------------
VIVIANI Comp   CH-8833 Samstagern    Switzerland
E-mail: viviani@active.ch  Dr. Andreas Viviani
Tel: +41 1 786 11 16    Fax: +41 1 786 11 25
Homepage:  /http://www2.active.ch/~viviani
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