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My neighbor pointed at my tomato plants and said one word that fixed my whole setup
I had six tomato plants in a 4x8 bed that were all tall and leafy but barely making fruit, and I figured it was just a bad season here in Sacramento. My neighbor Ray leaned over the fence in June, looked at them for a second, and said "suckers." I had no clue what he meant, so he walked me through pinching off the little shoots that grow in the crotch between the main stem and the branches. I spent about 15 minutes doing it on all six plants, and within three weeks I had more tomatoes than I could give away. Has anyone else had a random neighbor drop one word of advice that changed how you garden?
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kim.zara25d ago
Wait, "more tomatoes than I could give away" after only three weeks? That is wild to me honestly. I always thought those little shoots were just part of the plant doing its thing, like they were supposed to be there or something. Nobody ever told me they steal energy from the fruit, that actually makes so much sense now that I hear it. I have two plants that are basically giant bushes with like four sad tomatoes on them and I just figured my soil was bad. Fifteen minutes of pinching and you got a whole flood of tomatoes, that blows my mind a little. Ray is a legend for that one word.
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