Sunday, April 19, 2009

to pluck. or not to pluck - that is the question.


well, farmer fred says to let them be. my grandpa, told me to get rid of them. my personal experience leans me towards grandpas advice. what am i talking about? its whether to remove tomato flowers when the plants still havent been planted - i.e. still in pots; getting trucked into the garage nightly and out of the garage morningly (is that a word?).

pa told me the to take them off as it will probably stunt the tomato plants growth - let the plants focus on the roots. a few years ago, i missed a flower on a plant and it was a tomato about the size of a quarter before i saw it. i decided to let it go, that particular plant didnt do much until that tomato was harvested - after which it zoomed up in height and still got a decent crop from it.

what can others glean from this? well, my experience relates to only 1 plant, thats about as small of a sample as one can get - and with a sample population of 1 - the bell-curve is bit whacky - so your milage may vary. but i will continue to pluck those puppies, until the plants actually hit the dirt. sorry fred, but pa wins out on this one.


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