These will become main stems three to five. Then leave two to three more suckers above the first flower cluster. This sucker becomes main stem number two. To prune your indeterminate tomato plant, leave the main stem and the sucker right below the first flower cluster. Suckers are side shoots that grow out at an angle where the leaf petiole of the tomato plant joins the stem. To tame this growth, it’s best to prune out suckers so that the plant is left with three to five main stems. A well fed indeterminate tomato can grow 10 to 12 feet tall by the end of the season. Because they grow all summer and are vining, they will require staking for support. They will grow and set fruit until frost kills them, if fruiting conditions are favorable. You may need to prune indeterminate tomatoes. This can reduce the chances of infection for some of the soil borne tomato diseases. The only pruning to be done on determinate tomatoes is to remove leaves that are touching the ground.

In fact, pruning them can reduce the amount of fruit they produce, or cause the fruit they do produce to become sun burned due to not enough leaf cover for the fruit. These types of tomatoes don’t need to be pruned. If your tomato has small green fruits already, I suspect it is a determinate type such as Bush Early Girl, Ace or Valley Girl.

Pruning tomato plants download