A question about pruning

[moochops]

Hi folks. I am trying to grow my tomotoes in grow bags and supported by tall stakes. The plants are indeterminate and I have been pinching off the side shoots regularly. The problem I have is that most of the plants seem to have divided into two separate growing shoots after the first group of flowers have blossomed. In the past two years I have let each growing shoot to continue up and have tied them into the same stake. This has resulted in too much foliage up top and I get very little ripe fruit before the inevitable blight sets in. My question basically is whether it is okay or not to chop off one of these shoots and just have one main stem. My instinct says this would be fine and probably the correct thing to do, but I just want to make sure.

Also, has anyone ever had any luck with Sophie's Choice? I have tried seed from 3 different suppliers and none of the plants have ever set fruit, just grown slowly. This was in the exact same conditions as other varieties that grew quickly and set lots of fruit. Perhaps my climate? not sure.

Thanks guys,

Mike

[Moonglow]

hi, mike. welcome to tomatoville. help is on its way!

[goodwin]

I don't prune, so I can't help you with that. I have a dozen Sophie's Choice in containers and they have been slow to set fruit, but they are beginning to since I moved them out of the greenhouse.

[moochops]

Thanks for the welcome Moonglow. I have used this site as a great resource for a few seasons now and hope to post more in the future. I have lots to learn and probably many more questions to ask.

I'm glad your Sophies Choice plants are starting to pick up the pace goodwin. I'm not sure why it has been such a slow growing/non-fruiting variety for me as I thought, being an early variety, it would be ideal for the relatively short, relatively cool and often damp growing season that I experience. I imagine your climate is very different though.

Just for a bit of background - I've only been growing tomatoes for the last three summers. First year, I did okay and ate plenty of mostly cherry tomatoes (I forget the variety but it was a bush type). Eventually however the plants succumbed to blight in early September and turned to black, smelly mush. The next two years we had terrible wet, cloudy summers with often cool weather. In addition, rather than grow varieties tried and tested for my climate, I had been tempted to try heirloom varieties such as Brandywine, Omar's Lebanese, Yellow Pear, Marmande. All set fruit but none ripened before blight took hold at the end of July.

This year, in an attempt to avoid the heartbreak, I am using cheap plastic greenhouses to protect them from the rain, rather than to keep them warm. I have limited garden space outside and this is paved - hence why I am using grow-bags. I am hoping that keeping the plants dry will help avoid problems with blight. Hope you guys have a great tomato season.

Anyway, thanks for reading. I'm glad I got that off my chest.

[goodwin]

Here's one that's doing well for me this year. It is determinate, and I believe it's called Polefast. I started the seed in February and just picked the first ripe one.
We have had a very cool spring. It was 40 F (5 C?) last night here. I imagine anything you can do to create some kind of microclimate will help. Good luck!

[moochops]

Wow, that looks amazing. I'm weeks behind you. Maybe months.

I need a drink.

[dice]

[Sophie's Choice]

Sophie's was quite late for me last year, too. We had a cold
summer the first half of it. Up until about the 4th of July it
was running 10F below normal. Then a blistering weekend,
and back to cooler than normal temperatures. August was
ok, and it did set and ripen some fruit through August and
September, but I think it just does not like cold weather.

In a hot summer, it probably really is an early cultivar.

As for the blight, fusion_power had good luck with
Kimberly x Eva Purple Ball and Big Beef x Eva Purple Ball
crosses last year, tending to resist Early Blight when
everything else was in ruins. Tania grew this RL Chernomor
up in BC that was still standing and ripening fruit outside
when everything around it was dead from Late Blight.

So, Eva Purple Ball, Kimberly, and Chernomor would be some
to try in your climate. (I don't know how difficult it would be
to find Big Beef in the UK, or if it would ripen early enough
for you. Seedlings of it are ubiquitous over here in spring on
the nursery racks.)

[moochops]

Thanks for the advice dice. I'll check if I can get seeds of the varieties you mentioned for next season. Do you have any advice regarding my initial question about pruning a branch of a dividing tomato plant? each of the branches is getting bigger and producing further sets of flowers. My experience is this will all become too congested and soggy in my climate and eventually lead to blight.

I think I'll chop one of the branches.

[dice]

Chopping the branch probably won't hurt. If concerned about
the "shock to the system", you could do it in steps: cut off
a foot of it, wait a few days, cut off some more of it, and so on
until it is gone completely.

Here is a page (in French) with some good illustrations of
pruning methods used on the Continent:

http://www.tomodori.com/3culture/taill_sur_2-tiges.htm

(When they grow those multi-stem versions, they allow room
in advance to separate the stems on a trellis or whatever,
so that they are not shading each other.)

[ddsack]

Sophie's Choice has never been early for me either. One year it did produce two large early tomatoes, but they stayed green for a very long time, and were overtaken by other varieties that turned ripe first.

However, by fall it had an amazing number of tomatoes for it's short stature, just was disappointed that they took so long to ripen. Without greater height and foliage to maintain, I figured it would be an early.