How is it making the fruit ripen earlier? You are either slowing the plants growth or channeling it elsewhere. However I am not totally convinced it will although IĪm in two minds about it. armpits so that the fruit left on the main trusses ripens earlier and you are not left with masses of green toms. I did it with some small ones that hadn't flowered, just to watch it happen, and it's magic. You can stick these trimmings into water and they'll grow roots, giving you a new plant, if you like - although it may be too late in the year now, I'm not sure. And yes, it feels so wrong if it's had time to grow flowers and fruit, I know! But that's the part to remove if you choose to.

If you do decide to 'trim' your marmande, look for shoots which are growing at a leaf node, where the leaf joins onto the stem. Don't know about marmande, but you may find you get bigger fruits if you nip them out I suppose, I don't really know. I've left most of my romas alone and they seem fine so far. However, you're only supposed to nip out the sideshoots on indeterminate varieties anyway, not on the bush ones - so it depends what type your's are! There's a thread on here somewhere about roma plum toms, basically saying no-one really knows which type they are unless it says on the packet. I believe that this is to focus all the plant's energies into growing and ripening the fruits on the single stem, rather than spreading itself a bit thin trying to look after all of them. I left my 'suckers' on last year, but the plants took over the polytunnel so this year I've been pinching out the sideshoots (with the odd escapee) to leave one main stem.

Trimming tomato plants download