As usual I have planted my tomatoes too close together. The plants are now touching each other!! I was wondering if there was a way to reduce the foliage to give the fruit more chance, and what could I prune off without damaging the plant? Most are cordon types: I have Moneymaker, Marmande, Ananas beefsteak, Tigerella and Gardener's delight.
you could start by removing ant foliage below the first truss but only two at a time so not to stress the plant also where you think the foliage is to close together just cut them back a bit without removing the full leaf stem but i would not recommend cutting back more than half way back along the stem and again not to many off one plant at any one time
Ah that's a nice idea. I had not thought of just cutting off half the stem, I would have lopped it off right at the mother stem. I also read that the very bottom stems can come off, maybe that will help. I don't want to get just leaves and no tomatoes! although they are making baby fruit at the moment...
I have a few Marmande beefsteak type. Can I cut off the top of these once they have made several fruit trusses? And at what height should I do that?
I don,t grow beefy type so with mine i stop the ones i want for the show bench at six trusses others i let grow on, what i would so with any beefy is go for quality as apposed to quantity and stop them at 4 or 5 trusses.
Hopefully some one who grows them may be able to give some better advice.