Work when the leaves are dry to avoid spreading disease. ![]() As plants get taller, you can continue removing lower leaves up to 18 inches from the ground, to help keep the disease from spreading. Many tomato diseases, including septoria and early blight, can be present in soils, especially in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic and upper Midwest. (You may already be seeing leaf spots and blotches on the lower leaves.) Clip away any leaves that are touching the soil and continue pruning up to a foot from the ground. – Growing and pruning to a vertical stake may be not be an option for this year, but both determinate and indeterminate varieties benefit from removing the lower leaves to keep soil-borne diseases from splashing up onto the foliage. What if I already have big plants in the garden? It may be hard to bring yourself to do this, but it will be worth it if you wish for ripe tomatoes! Of course, if you prefer your tomatoes to remain green for use in frying and jelly, you can certainly skip this step. This way, the fruit will ripen faster, plus it becomes more likely that the green tomatoes you pick before frost will actually ripen when you bring them indoors. Called "topping," this type of pruning causes the plant to stop flowering and setting new fruit, and instead directs all sugars to the remaining fruit. To speed ripening late in the season, remove the growing tip of each main stem about four weeks before the first expected fall frost. As the growing season draws to a close, tomato plants are often still loaded with fruit. ![]() If you do have to cut them, use a sharp knife or pruner blade to make a clean cut as close to the main stem as possible without damaging stem tissue. Try to remove suckers when they're small enough to pinch with your fingers, so you don't leave a gaping wound on the stem. As these leaves enlarge, they help shade fruit and protect it from sunscald. In warmer zones, though, experts often recommend practicing what's known as Missouri pruning, where you pinch off the leaflets on the end of each sucker, leaving only the two base leaflets in place. ![]() In northern regions, many gardeners go further, removing all suckers as they appear. Suckers are the little shoots that form in the spot (called an axil) where the leaf stem attaches to the main growing stem.
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