The inside of my greenhouse looks like a jungle. I only have two kinds of plants growing in my greenhouse: tomatoes and chili’s. They all seem to be thriving.
The tomato plants look especially jungly. It is a common practice to “sucker” or pinch off all the auxiliary branches of the tomato plants. This not only keeps the plants from being so bushy, and better controlled, it also “puts the plant’s effort into making tomatoes”. That is one theory, and it is something I used to do.
Then about 5 years ago, I heard a gardener on the radio say that experiments had shown that suckering really didn’t make any difference in the fruit, and that by not suckering, the plant had more leaves and would generate more sugar, for the developing tomato. That sounded sensible to me, so that is the way I have been growing my tomatoes. It does make quite a jungle of the plants though.
I always grow several varieties of tomatoes, and this year I am looking forward to seeing what “Sioux”, “Cherokee Chocolate”, and “Black From Tula” tomatoes taste like. It is gratifying to see the small tomatoes forming on the plants, and I can’t wait for them to grow and ripen. Nothing makes a sandwich taste better than a big slice of home grown tomato.
Take a look at my paintings at: www.davidmarchant.ca
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