"A" on the photo is the leaf stem branching off. Immediately above the leaf stem, growing diagonally upwards, is the lateral, marked "B". There's a second pair of leaf and lateral to the right just above the marked pair. If the lateral is left in there, the leaf stem will be forced downwards to the ground as the lateral grows.What to do:
* snap the laterals off when they are small like they are in the photo - so the wound is small and heals quickly
* dry windy day - again, so the wound dries out quickly
* have clean hands - so you don't inadvertently transmit a disease from other plants or soil
* I'm sure I've read somewhere that the lateral immediately below the first set of flowers is the strongest and can be left in, so you end up with two stems producing fruit
* check and repeat every two weeks
Last year I never really got a handle on what laterals were as I couldn't find any good photos or illustrations to show me what to remove, and things did get pretty chaotic - the resulting bushes were very difficult to support. I think I've got it mostly sussed now though - so today I did a initial cleanup, removing laterals, removing the leaf stems that were already too low and virtually sitting on the ground, tying the plants to their stakes, removing the odd weed, and watering the root area with Tom-A-Rite organic tomato fertiliser. As the plants are just starting to produce flowers, the fertiliser will need to go on every week from now.
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5 comments:
Great! I've always been a bit confused as to which were the laterals and your article has clarified it for me. Fortunately,although confused, by good luck I have been breaking off the right bit!!
Excellent! I've since had some laterals grow back in the same spot, or seen more than one lateral growing in a particular "junction", so it can be tricky to keep up with. I think getting the early ones, while the plant is small, is the key though so you don't end up with a mega-plant with multiple stems.
Thank you for your advice.
Having lived most of my life in appartment buildings in big cities, I can confidently classify myself as a horticultural philistine. Now that I have a medium-size suburban backyard I have taken great interest in gardening, especially homegrown tomatoes, which are truly unbeatable for taste.
I had read that laterals should be removed and I was keen to prune but wasn't able to distinguish between the lateral and leaf . Unfortunatly last week I inadvertantly pruned the leaf and kept the lateral(silly me)on my three grafted tomatoes.
Oh well, but all is not lost, as the plants are only two feet high and are growing vigorously, so it's not too late to apply your advice clarified by your very helpful visual aid. Until I saw your photo a few minutes ago, clearly depicting the difference between lateral (B)and leaf (A), I had erronously assumed the contrary.
Once again, many thanks for your photo and explanation.
I don't know why books don't explain these things more clearly! If your plants are vigorous they should soon recover as the laterals will also grow and fruit.
This is the best depiction of the difference between a leaf and a lateral that I have seen (and I have been looking for a while).On behalf of new gardeners everywhere -THANK YOU!!
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