Removing tomato leaves?

helen_roberts_2

Hi, this is my first year doing tomato plants and was just wondering I am supposed to remove leaves from them? The first truss is quite high up with about 4 lots of leaves under it?

Also the tops of my plants are all curly and twisted, tried giving them
more water and moving them to bigger pots. They are still growing and the flower buds are starting to open but they are twisted.

All help much appreciated

Thank you

SallyForth_2

Hi, I am glad you have mentioned the curling and twisting thing, because, although most of my toms are fine, I have three which are doing this, does anyone know why?

stilernin

Tomato plants often have a few leaves before the first truss and this can be quite high up if the plant has grown fast if it was short of light IYSWIM.

When repotting toms' I carefully take off several of the bottom leaves and plant almost up the the remaining bottom leaf. New roots will come out of the buried stem giving you a much better root system to support the plant. - More fruit in the end.

If you have to, or could still, repot, I'd be tempted to bury them a bit deeper.


EDIT for clarity..... if you are growing cordon toms' you will also need to pinch out any side shoots as the plant grows.

Lotus-eater

They get curly when it's hot, which it has been.

seraphina

Some are more curly than others - my San Marzanos are very curly whilst my Marmandes which are grown in the same greenhouse are lovely and straight.

With regards to removing leaves, I only pinch out the shoots between the branches and the main stem. So, if you have the main stem growing straight up, and a branch of leaves off to the side, if any shoot appears in the junction between the main stem and the branch of leaves, that comes off. I didn't catch a few on one of my plants and it now has two big stems.

I also snip off any leaves that look damaged or wilted. I will also cut off a truss or two if I think it looks like the plant has gone mad and has loads of trusses at similar stages - I'd rather have 3-4 good trusses than 6-7 weedy ones.

skelly01

Hi folks I spoke about this in a thread last year (Can't find it). My sis in laws dad always removes all the leaves below the first truss once it has set fruit.
I did this last year and had no problems whatsoever, and would even suggest that the plants made better fruits as they were able to put more energy in.
I also have the problem of some of my plants going twited and bushy at the tops. I have just tried to pinch these bits out but leave the main grwoing tip. It seems to be just my Alicantes that are doing it with my tigereela, black cherry, sun gold etc all fine.

[Deleted User]

mine are also curly and twisted and it is because the sugars made during the day don`t have enough time in the night to disperse in the plant. I may put mine into a slightly more shady position as the sun is fierce

skelly01

Suppose the question is then will they be OK?

absfabs

Tomatoes often go curly and twisted at the top, does not do any harm, don't worry!

I only start removing lower leaves when they start going a bit manky later in the season, but you will find different people have different approaches to this. Either way, you should get plenty of toms!:D

Sally_A

Leaf curl is not harmful to the plant, and they will sort themselves out and come good.

I am however, a serial deleafer, and regularly nip out at least 1/3rd of the leaves (in addition to the pinching out of shoots). I do this because it lets the air circulate around the plant, and it also minimises the chance of nasties inhabiting the plant: I tend to get a moth caterpillar on my plants most years. The best way of checking for these is a) look for caterpillar poo on the lower leaves, b) on a sunny day, get down low and look upwards for any eggs laid on the underside of leaves (do this first before the caterpillars hatch).