Guest Column
If growing determinate tomatoes (Plants grow to a certain size, put out a tomato crop and are usually done by early August), disregard this article. Indeterminate tomato plants grow from planting to frost. Fewer plant branches will actually improve your harvest. As always, prune to improve, but overdoing it will harm the harvest and perhaps sun scald remaining tomatoes - they need cover. Always prune when branches are dry, and prune throughout the growing season.
You should have removed the lowest leaves (& flowers if present) and put your transplants deeper in the soil. Any portion of the stem buried will create roots. When your plants are at least 12", but preferably 18" tall, again prune the lowest limbs. This gives improved airflow, allows the plant to dry faster when wet, and hinders diseases. Less leaves make is easier to spot insects. This and other pruning causes the plants to redirect from growing to making fruit and making it ripen faster. You will get somewhat less tomatoes, but those produced will be somewhat bigger than those of non-trimmed plants.
As the plants continue growing, pruning switches from loping off the lowest branches to pinching off plant suckers. Simply walk your hands up the main stem. At the base of branches, a new "branch" will start developing. These are called suckers, and should be removed. It's important to pinch these off while they are very small. Otherwise, a wound for insects and disease will be left behind.
Finally, a month before frost, cut off all growing tips to make the plant stop developing new tomatoes and concentrate on ripening remaining tomatoes. This helps reduce the need to gather so many green tomatoes the days before that first frost. Also, tomatoes that are still green will ripen faster after being brought indoors.
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