Pinching back tomatoes?

Quick question! Is it ok to pinch back the leading stem on tomatoes that are started inside and getting too stretched out? These are roma type tomatoes - so determinate, but usually a pretty tall and floppy type. My little tiny tims are doing fine, as is their nature, but the roma are getting a little long. I've transplanted them once into bigger containers and buried them almost up to the cotyledons, which did help. I still have 3 feet of snow in my garden, but I can just about get to my greenhouse - it's already +12 here today, so I'm getting excited!

Is it possible to just bury them deeper when you set them out? Stake them in the pot for now? If you pinch them they will branch out, and having too many branches will keep the center of the plant moist and you will be more likely to get blight, though I don't know if blight is a problem where you are, but it is HUGE at the coast.

I dont think they handle being pinched well until their second set of true leaves. Mine have also turned spindly, despite everything I try. Letting a box with a window heat up outside tomorrow and I'll put some in and see if they can strengthen up a bit.

I'm trying to decide this year if I'm going to pinch off suckers or not. Last year I didn't, and the vines were prolific with smaller fruits. Maybe just for the bigger tomatoes I will.

Sweetened, make sure the box doesn't get direct sun the first few days, or you'll burn your plants.

Hmm..The plants are already in direct light, but inside the house right by a south facing window, thats how I started them.

Do you think this will still be the case when I move them out?

I have never heard of pinching tomoato plants to make them branch or to stop upward growth. Personally, I think it a no, no. Something in the cobwebs of my mind. Don't. And I don't know why. Never, ever have I pinched a tomato plant. Now with the indeterminate tomatoes, the ones that continue to bear fruit all the season, not just in a shorter period of time, for sure, removing the suckers is a proper thing to do. Those suckers are just too much foliage and that can harbour moisture on the leaves of the plants, a very bad thing, can cause early and late blight issues. So for sure, removing suckers is a good thing, and yes, increases fruit size.

When you find the plants getting too leggy, put them into a larger pot. If you have a long, long stem, you can take that stem and lay it in the larger pot, making like a circle so the stem is like a ball of yarn, wound around and around. Hard to explain. But you can take that long stem (after removing all the leaves, save the top two sets) and bury it below the soil medium, any way that you can get it below ground. Leaving a little bit of greens above the soil. This makes massively strong roots systems, as all along the stem the roots will grow when covered. That is the thing about tomatoes and staring inside, if they are not under lights, they can get very, very leggy. But this can be to advantage. I remember back on the coast, of course, they would get too big to go under the lights many other plants were grown below. They would get leggy. I can remember having to stake the tomato plants in the pots, so tall, so spindly. When I could get them out into the garden soil, I would dig a trench and lay that plant all the way along the trench, cover the stem with soil, leaving the top two sets of leaves only above the ground. These can be like two feet of stem below ground. Interesting how tomatoes grow. But I would never pinch a tomato plant, I think it might harm, and as mentioned in another post, pinching causes branching and you do NOT want lots of leaves of thickness to be encouraged on the plants themselves. Hope this has helped. Maybe they can be pinched, and others may chime in, but I would personally not. Have an awesome day, CynthiaM.

Think like a tomato. Why so leggy inside and ok outside?

Light- it is much brighter outside, even if you have them by the window. A fluorescent bulb works wonders.

Temperature- it is much cooler outside and this slows their growth, making them stocky. I have had more success growing inside the cold basement with a light than in the warm south facing window.

Wind- believe it or not this is a biggie. Constant breezes toughen and thicken the stem. You can simulate wind on an indoor plant by taking a paper towel tube and brushing it over the top 40-50 times a day. I wouldn't put a fan on them unless you can water them constantly.

Schipperkesue wrote:
Wind- believe it or not this is a biggie. Constant breezes toughen and thicken the stem. You can simulate wind on an indoor plant by taking a paper towel tube and brushing it over the top 40-50 times a day. I wouldn't put a fan on them unless you can water them constantly.

Now this is the funniest thing I have ever heard. Puleeeze, hope you are not serious, smiling. Yes, wind for surely does strengthen and harden plants, but I would not bother to brush a towel tube over plants 40-50 times a day. To me, that is someone with too much time on their hands

Tomato plants will grow in very cold weather, for surely and it is the lower light, higher temperatures that make for spindly growth. But a south facing window, with no lights is perfect, except it gets HOTter than hot on a south facing windowsill, but the light is much better than east or west, and don't do northern facing, that just does not cut anything. What to do, what to do, indoor growing of plants without artificial light is a very tricky thing. I am just starting my tomato seedlings today. I wonder if they will grow as nicely as ones that I could have started a month ago. Bet my bottom dollar they will, and the light is so much more strong these days, I think there is not too much advantage to starting some seedlings too soon. What to do, what to do, have awesome days, CynthiaM.

It is just fine to pinch a determinate tomato, you want it to branch lots anyway.

Country Thyme Farm wrote:It is just fine to pinch a determinate tomato, you want it to branch lots anyway.

What about indeterminate? This is interesting and will be beneficial knowledge to many, thanks!! Have awesome days, CynthiaM.

CynthiaM wrote:

Schipperkesue wrote:
Wind- believe it or not this is a biggie. Constant breezes toughen and thicken the stem. You can simulate wind on an indoor plant by taking a paper towel tube and brushing it over the top 40-50 times a day. I wouldn't put a fan on them unless you can water them constantly.

Now this is the funniest thing I have ever heard. Puleeeze, hope you are not serious, smiling. Yes, wind for surely does strengthen and harden plants, but I would not bother to brush a towel tube over plants 40-50 times a day. To me, that is someone with too much time on their hands

I kid you not, Cynthia, this is a recommendation from garden centres and it works. I have done it and it is a success. Try it! It is not labor instensive. Stand beside your plants for 30 seconds a day and brush the tube back and forth over the seedlings. Once a day for 30 seconds. That is all. The stems toughen and thicken from the abuse that they would normally get from the wind and you will have stocky little tomatoes.

And to show you I am not crazy here is a thread on it...

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And more info with an actual video!

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Sue is right here, many bedding plant growers brush their plants to get a better and more uniform growth on their plants. Tomato growth rate is so fast though I'm not sure how much benefit you'd get with them.

CynthiaM on here has given the best advice so far in my opinion. Indoor tomatoes for home gardeners should probably just have been started a week or two ago, especially in a prairie climate. We start ours much sooner, but we have access to a heated greenhouse where light transmission is much more ideal, and because we're growing them in a greenhouse all summer anyway, our field tomatoes only got started about four weeks ago I think, and we probably would have waited longer except we sell the plants too. Transplant shock is the biggest reason not to start plants too soon in your home. The larger a plant is and the more it's stretched the longer it's going to take to recover from the shock of transplanting. I've set out leggy plants that took three weeks to recover, and at that point you might as well have saved yourself the effort and started later.

AS for indeterminate tomatoes, you can pinch them too if you really want and then just pick a new main leader from what branches out from that. Most of the time indeterminates are best left unpinched except for side branches, but there have been occasions where I've cut back an indeterminate pretty heavily and then established a new leader.

I can't even remember who posted this thread originally but the thing with tomatoes is that they are able to handle a great deal of abuse. Few other vegetables will deal with whatever you do to them more stoically. You could probably cut all your tomatoes in half right now and they'd recover well enough!

Hmm - lots to think about! I have a few more plants than I need, so - I've pinched back 20% and marked them. I guess then I'll find out for sure what works best for me! I'm a learn by doing type! When I plant them out, I set them in as deep as possible anyways and even the spindly ones seem to recover. I'll revive this post if I figure out a cut-and-dry answer - I'm guessing there's a grey area with differences in determinate/indeterminate varieties.

CynthiaM wrote:Those suckers are just too much foliage and that can harbour moisture on the leaves of the plants, a very bad thing, can cause early and late blight issues. So for sure, removing suckers is a good thing, and yes, increases fruit size.

When you find the plants getting too leggy, put them into a larger pot. If you have a long, long stem, you can take that stem and lay it in the larger pot, making like a circle so the stem is like a ball of yarn, wound around and around. Hard to explain. But you can take that long stem (after removing all the leaves, save the top two sets) and bury it below the soil medium, any way that you can get it below ground. Leaving a little bit of greens above the soil. This makes massively strong roots systems, as all along the stem the roots will grow when covered.

Cynthia is totally correct. Plant all the stem except top two sets of leaves underground for strong root system. Do not pinch back. Pinch off side shoots, and stake the plants.

Schipperkesue!! Well I am still enthralled by this information about the wind. I do know for a fact, that in the greenhouses when I had my retail nursery, that the plants that had the full doors that opened on each end, instead of a door and only a window on one end, performed much better. Probably cross winds. I do know that plants that are allowed good air movement are sturdier, stockier, would work well with tomatoes too. so many things we learn in our travels out and about. I like the idea of wind moving the tomato plants, and do believe that it will keep them more short and stronger, but strong light and lower temperatures would also be a good helper here for surely. I wonder if a blow dryer on low speed and heat would probably do the same thing...

I remember last year so many volunteer tomatoes came up in different places in the garden. I let them grow, not all, but some, because I wanted to see if they matured. Guess what...they did. I am talking about heritage, open pollinated ones. Think the chickens must have pooped the tomato seeds from the prior year out in the garden in the spring and they just, well, grew. I could tell the variety of tomato by the leaf (Brandywine, potato leaf) and some sweet 100s of some sort (not sure if they are open pollinated, but I think so, are the sweet 100s and 1,000,000 hybrids? Anyone?). so, ya, not enough room to inside start for a long period of time, but enough time to get the first couple of sets of leaves up and out. Will harden off on my porch, that way they get full benefit of solid, strong sun. What a wonderful topic. Have an awesome day, CynthiaM.