[sockmonkey]

Have you ever tried this with tomatoes?

http://www.wikihow.com/Prune-Tomatoes

Anyone else try removing all suckers, and leaving about three leaves on the lateral branches? Removing all branches and suckers below first fruit cluster?

I’m kind of scared to try it. In Texas, it seems like the sun would burn the tomatoes up with so little leaf protection.

[JRandomFreeper]

I've tried it both ways. I didn't see a difference that made up for the trouble.

Ugh... One thing about being around the grandkids. I catch whatever they have. Won't be any gardening today. I hate being sick.

/johnny

[Marcella]

Thanks for that about tomatoes - some of that I needed to know.

[Sarajevo]

I pinch off suckers all the time. It doesn't hurt the plant. I haven't tried removing all the leaves except 3 on the lateral clusters. That would seem to be counterproductive.

Truthfully, a little shadecloth over the plants does wonders for them in our neck of the woods. That mid-day sun can be scorch plants quickly. I use a 30% shadecloth over my hoophouse.

[Marcella]

I have the Satellite model computer, too. The headset will be here Wednesday.

To ALL: TALL UTAH CELERY:
I didn't expect to get celery to grow, especially in a container. I don't remember how I decided on Tall Utah Celery seed. I started the seed under the grow lamp and those seedlings were wispy, fragile and the cup was stuffed with them, needed to get them out of that tiny paper cup. I figured they would die when transplanted. They were so fragile, it was hard to even locate them in the 3 gal. container, wasn't sure some of them got any soil over the roots. I gave that up as a lost cause.

Those celery plants, there are five of them, in that 3 gallon bucket are 12 inches tall, numerous stalks on each, and hardy and green with not a blemish anywhere on them. I stuck a lot more than five seedlings in there but these five took hold. I couldn't ask for nicer, fuller, celery plants. I'll do at least one more pot of these next year.

If you want to plant celery seedlings grown from seed in a container, I know this Tall Utah Celery will grow very well.

[tflabo]

socks on my mater’s I pull off about half the suckers as a compromise because here in Tx you know the summer sun and heat burn up some of the plant. Letting a few suckers remain allows the Fall recovery season to get them growing again if they survive. I used to pull off all the suckers back when I lived up in the northeast many a blue lunars ago.