I mentioned suckers in an earlier post, saying that you can pinch them if you wish, but don’t have to – well, some people do not know what a sucker actually is.

What is a sucker ?

Suckers grow our between a tomato leaf branch and its stem.  If you pinch them off and stick them in the ground, they will root and you have another tomato plant.  Here is a nice picture of a sucker on an early tomato plant:

tomato-sucker

What is the benefit of pinching suckers ?

If you choose to pinch the suckers off your tomatoes, you will end up with bigger fruit, but probably less of them.  If you leave the suckers grow, however, you might get more, yet smaller fruit.  It really depends on your preference and on how much work you are willing or able to put into your tomato patch.

5 Responses to “Tomato Suckers”
  1. I am not much of a farmer but this information is very helpful, now when plant tomato you can also do something to have bigger fruit. Not much of a work if you wish to have bigger tomato fruit.

  2. Thanks for commenting, I am glad the information helps :)

  3. Hi Tamie,

    Thanks for sharing :) It works indeed, and my replanted suckers are almost as big as the tomatoes I took them from.

    One more hint on planting suckers: It is a good idea not to plant them in the heat of the day, to plant them as deep as you can, and to give them plenty of water until they have grown their own roots.

    Rose

  4. I knew to pinch the suckers, but had no idea I could grow another tomato plant from them! Thanks for the info!

  5. I don’t start pinching off suckers until about half-way through the growth season of the plant. This way I still get a good amount per plant, but they’re larger than if I didn’t pinch at all. Also, it saves me time during the beginning of the season when there are more important jobs to be done in the garden.

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