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Re: Tomato pruning

>Still looking for SPECIFIC tips on tomato pruning.  NOT GENERAL tips, thanks.
> General tips have not proved useful.   
>
> How do I tell if I have bush tomatoes or vine tomatoes (all my tomatoes are
>bushy, including those I know to be Beefsteak).  Do I prune both vine and
>bush plants?  How *exactly*?

I think you were the one who posted about pruning squash, think of tomatoes
in about the same way.  If you want them to grow five feet lop them off at
the five foot mark.  If you want them to stay nice and neat near the stake,
pick off all the little shoots that emerge next to the stalk immediately
above an existing branch.  Those are the 'sucker' plants.   Exact
instructions aren't really necessary because you can't really do much
damage to a tomato plant as long as you are pinching the new shoots, top of
the plant or branches - whatever.  They are pretty much indestructible when
it comes to pruning unless you are hacking away at old growth.

Lots of controversy over pinching 'suckers' - there is no right or wrong
way it seems -- some pinch them off hoping for the bigger individual
tomatoes, others leave them on thus increasing their total number yield.
There can't be a definitive answer as to which is better because everyone
has their own interpretation of what is a good tomato crop.  

I pinch mine depending on the room I have and *if* I see the shoots
emerging.  Once they start growing you can't really see things in the
jungle of leaves.  I figure if they make it past three inches long they
deserve to live. (:  Nearer the end of the growing season I am much more
brutal, wanting the plant to put it's energy into ripening the tomatoes not
growing more branches.

As far as which are which, determinate or indeterminate, there is no way to
tell by looking at the leaves - it's when they keep growing and show no
signs of stopping that you can tell.  I do mine just as you mentioned you
do with your squash - when it's about 'that' tall - off goes it's head.

I'm not sure how long you've been growing squash (and cousins) but your
instructions on how to grow them vertically were about the best I've seen.
Think of growing tomatoes like that -- if you've been in the squash
'business' for years and years and know exactly because of trial and error
just how to do it, that's about how long it'll take to figure out tomatoes.
But, considering gardening isn't usually quite like that - figure that if
one way didn't work for you the following year make a few changes and
become your own expert in no time at all.

To answer your question though <whew> I don't think there are any specific
hard and fast rules about tomato pruning.  It's all individual taste.  I
think about the only things gardeners agree on is that gardening is fun,
it's rewarding and the bugs and the weeds are a pain.  

Carol
zone 5/6, a close neighbor of the land of the midnight sun
where the tomatoes just got planted outside last week
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