Well, It's 4 Weeks Now...and we got serious blossoms

[basjoe48]

Most of you should know by now, that I started out with a 6-plant flat, Celebrity Tomatoes, 4 are in traditional pots, and 2 are in my 1st EB. These pics really don't do the EB justice because the difference is quite incredible with the human eye....but I think you can see the growth difference...check out the size of the stems and leaves. Each EB plant has several clusters of blossoms, while the others have only one....and 1 of the 4 don't have any yet, but is trying real hard  .

A question for the pros out there: With the blossoms appearing, do I need to do any pruning on these Celebrity plants?? I've read yays and nays on this point, and am not sure what would be the right thing to do with this variety of tomato. Any input will be quite welcomed  !!

So here it is, week #4 progress:









In the background in the 1st pic, you can see the roll of 4' chicken wire I bought to keep the critters out...especially the neighborhood mutt  . Plus we got the usual rabbits, skunk, raccoons, etc. My son and I will get it staked out sometime this weekend when he has some free time on his hands...summers are hectic around here after that long, hard, cold winter...it's actually Heaven this time of the year  

[Ratrace142]

 

Wow. You really do have some blossoms.

 :(My plants fought a really bad storm yesterday with over 4 inches of rain, thunder, and lightning. Over 16,000 people lost their electricity. There was flooding, too. The storm lasted from 1:00 until 7:00 Friday. We thought that we were going to have a tornado yesterday afternoon when a dark cloud changed shape and started to become a funnel shape.

[joekun]

Wow, looks great!  As for pruning, I've also read varying opinions.  I decided to leave my plants alone (except for the suckers) but they started to get kind of tangled together.  My wife really wanted to prune them so I finally relented and let her cut a few branches off the bottom that weren't getting a whole lot of sun.  One thing I read said that people who had tried both hadn't really noticed much difference between pruned and unpruned plants.  I'll be interested to see what the experts have to say.

[basjoe48]

Wow, looks great!  As for pruning, I've also read varying opinions.  I decided to leave my plants alone (except for the suckers) but they started to get kind of tangled together.  My wife really wanted to prune them so I finally relented and let her cut a few branches off the bottom that weren't getting a whole lot of sun.  One thing I read said that people who had tried both hadn't really noticed much difference between pruned and unpruned plants.  I'll be interested to see what the experts have to say.

Thanks joekun for the input. I think I'll leave well enough alone because of the amount of varied opinions on this subject.

The one point that does come up consistently is:    "If you don't prune you'll get more, slightly smaller tomatoes to harvest."

So, I decided to NOT prune and do quantity....my 1st EB will satisfy my ego more with quantity  !!

[Steve]

I'd have to agree with the general consensus.  We pinch off the suckers but otherwise tend to leave our plants alone.  Nice pictures Basjoe!