So technically, by mid October our PNW summer gardening will be over. And that is about 40 days away.

Let us check our numbers and count our fingers a little bit here.
It takes anywhere from 40 days to 50 days from flower to ripe fruit. What this means simply is that, EVEN IFF the growth speed is the same as mid season, any flower opened 40 to 50 days before First Frost date will have no chance to make it. But we know that growth and ripening process will be slowed down drastically as the fall-like weather arrives.

MY THINKING AND OPTION:

My plants have plenty of foliage already to take care of their photosynthesis needs. So they they don't need more of it. Also any new flower will have no chance to make it. So I have started pinching off any and all new growth and flowers. I am not touching any existing ones, BTW. Let them be, because the plant already has made investment on them.

Despite what I am doing, I have a pretty good estimate that at the end of season I will end up with plenty of green tomatoes to pickle and throw at the rabbits :-)

>To Top or Not to Top.

THAT IS THE QUESTION !

Most tomatoes in my garden are almost 12' high, with new branches / leaves and flowers. New tomatoes too, but less than I expected. Some in this forum advise to let EVERYTHING grow. I didn’t decide yet what to do with the new flowers, but I’ll have to do it… FAST !

> We have passed the stage of "To Prune or Not to Prune" and have had many discussions amongst the pros and cons. But that issue is behind us.

Nope, not yet.

> But we know that growth and ripening process will be slowed down drastically as the fall-like weather arrives.

That is so very true !!! DRASTICALLY, that’s the word. One day of summer could be 3-4 days of autumn.

I have VERY little trust on weather, and when the highest will be mid 60s, I better clean my garden. Well, most of my garden, because I have an area that will be COMPLETELY covered with plastic; it’s like a small hoop house.

seysonn wrote:

> My plants have plenty of foliage already to take care of their photosynthesis needs. So they they don't need more of it. Also any new flower will have no chance to make it. So I have started pinching off any and all new growth and flowers. I am not touching any existing ones,

I had a similar thinking.

What would be the surface / area - in sq.ft. - of foliage needed by a 1 lb. tomato ?

Almost 12 ft. high. I wish I had that in July, or even August. I'll have it next year. GUARANTEED !

I don't have the numbers but I am sure there isn't a difference between a 1 lb tomato and 10 tomatoes each 1.5 oz. The difference is in time required to grow to maturity.

Ok. Today is another day that I will do some topping. Actually snipping of the new growth and all new buds and what not.

BTW Daniel , When is your statistical FFD?

Just in case you end up with lots of good size tomatoes, chances are that some of them might ripen indoor, PROVIDED they are MATURE size. Another use is to learn to make "Green Fried Tomatoes". If nothing else one can always throw them :-)

> What would be the surface / area - in sq.ft. - of foliage needed by a 1 lb. tomato ?

I mean 1 sq. ft. is enough for a 1 lb. tomato ? 2 sq. ft. ? 4 sq. ft. ?

Seysonn wrote:

> My plants have plenty of foliage already to take care of their photosynthesis needs. So they they don't need more of it.

How do you know when it’s enough ? I have the same "feeling"
about my tomatoes, but I would prefer a scientifically way to verify my "feelings."

It would be good to know, the surface / area so I could get rid of unnecessary foliage (new branches / leaves.)

FFD here is November 15.

When the season ends - probably in 2, max. 3 weeks - I will have about 20 large tomatoes, 15 medium size, and A LOT of small tomatoes, not only cherry, but mostly late-season varieties.

No topping. This year I decided to let EVERYTHING grow… just to see what’s happening. Maybe we'll have an Indian Summer.

Like I said in the past, for me, having a 1 in. Brandywine tomato at this end of the season, is a kind of offense to the variety. Most likely I will pickle them, as somebody suggested here. Or fry them...

%%%%%%%%%%%
I don't have the scientific answer, but from my observation, a toamato plant can function well with 1/3 of foliage like in my jungle. I have seen pictures of tomato plants with loads of fruit with much less leaves.
Pruning and reducing foliage/leaves/branches is a common practice with fruit trees, grape vines, flowers, flowering shrubs .. for better performance and tomato plant , I don't think, is an exception. JMO

> I have seen pictures of tomato plants with loads of fruit with much less leaves.

I saw those kind of pictures too, but we don't know what JUNGLE it was 1-2 weeks before they took the picture.

Because I highly doubt that 3-4 branches at the top of the plants, can feed 20-25 medium size tomatoes...

PS. I am not cutting back any mature leaves, but only new growth that are like babies that need to be fed by the mother plant. LOL

> I read somewhere that it takes 12 leaves to grow one tomato.

Do you mean: leaves or branches ?

I think you meant branches.

So if a tomato plant has 20 tomato fruits, doing the math = 240 branches. That is a helluva MONSTER "jungle !"

Currently, the "jungle" of a heavy foliage tomato in my garden has around 50 branches - about 10 branches per stem. And in my opinion is more than enough for the 15-20 tomato fruits of the tomato plant.

5 times more than that ? I don't know about that...

>I did mean leaves.

13 leaves on this branch.

While obviously I respect any opinion you might have, IMHO of newbie, one branch is not enough to sustain a tomato fruit.

Most of the people here don't prune AT ALL - of course except the obvious necessary pruning - so they have dozens, or even hundreds of leaves for one tomato.

>Have you seen pictures of some of Dan MacCoy's plants?

Yes, I did. I even posted a few pictures in the New World Record 8.41 Pound Tomato thread.

But in this picture I see more than 12 leaves for that tomato. More like 12 branches.

Look at it this: Take one stem. It normally grows a truss every other leaf node. Lets say every 3rd one. So for three (3) leaf branch it grows about three(3) tomato. That is roughly one tomato per a compound leaf (leaf branch). Go ahead, multiply it by 2.
My personal opinion is that I am growing too much foliage for too little fruits already. I have been just too lazy to reduce all that foliage systematically. It takes a lot of planning and time.

So how much foliage does a plant need to produce fruits ? .
Some plants, under certain growing condition(excess fertilizers) Just grow more foliage and grow a few fruits.

seysonn, who estimated 12 leaf branches ?

Here it is:

lubadub wrote:

> I read somewhere that it takes 12 leaves to grow one tomato.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
By "leaf" it is meant compound leaf, aka "leaf branch", me thinks.
seysonn

To me the picture you posted is one leaf and what you are counting as leaves are leaflets.

lubadub tx for the link.

[ lubadub, if I may allow me to tell you the HTML code to make a link:

< b >< a href="URL" >TEXT< /a >< /b >

Remove the blank spaces before and after < and >.

If you want to quote in Italic, the code is:

> < i >TEXT< /i >

As above, remove the blank spaces before and after < and >.. ]

So seysonn… back to square one.

lubadub wrote:

> I read somewhere that it takes 12 leaves to grow one tomato.

seysonn wrote:

> I think 12 leaf branches is way toooo high an estimate.

I have the same opinion.

Now, please pardon me to repeat what I wrote a few days ago:

> So if a tomato plant has 20 tomato fruits, doing the math = 240 branches. That is a helluva MONSTER "jungle !"

Currently, the "jungle" of a heavy foliage tomato in my garden has around 50 leaves - about 10 leaves per stem. And in my opinion is more than enough for the 15-20 tomato fruits of the tomato plant.

5 times more than that ? I don't know about that...

I would add that Micheal picked up 75 tomatoes from one plant. Doing the math...

Currently, the "jungle" of a heavy foliage tomato in my garden has around 50 leaves - about 10 leaves per stem. And in my opinion is more than enough for the 15-20 tomato fruits of the tomato plant.

I have a feeling that we perceive foliage as an indication of good healthy plants and we love to take credit for doing that. But we are growing it for its fruits, just like we grow flowers for its blooms. JMO

> I have a feeling that we perceive foliage as an indication of good healthy plants…

Well, I don’t know about others, but for ME, green, clean leaves, show a healthy plant.

I freak out when I see limp plants. Many times there is nothing you can do with a limp plant.

Now, if we are talking about EXCESSIVE foliage - who knows what’s “excessive” when we don’t know the needed foliage for a tomato fruit ? - that’s a different story. Yes, too much N in soil will make a lot of leaves and a few fruits. I don’t think it’s my case.

I mean I'm ok with 15-20 tomatoes on a late-season plant - Michael says it's "abnormal low." Well, yes it it lower than his 30+ (Yellow Brandywine), but he's growing tomatoes for many more years than me. We'll see next year.

You know, I had plants that had the first tomato at 2 ft. high, while others at... 6 ft. high !!!

I have tomatoes with foliage 3-4 time bigger than others. In same conditions of growing: fertilization, watering...

Well, seysonn, we'll talk about pruning vs. no pruning in a new thread that I'll start soon.
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That is interesting. I have been in this game for years. I have my opinions and never insisted that I am right. But this thread is not about pruning although it might have crossed over.

Topping end of season is altogether a different thing, as I have tried to explain in my opening post.

Look forward to your thread.

seysonn