Yes, you should clip the leaves and branches that you intend to bury below the soil. I would imagine that leaving them on might lead to mould/rot issues.

You can prune your plant down to one main stem if you have space issues. I just let mine go with as many stems as it can put out. Some say that if you trim, you'll get less fruit but they will be larger. There's a good FAQ on pruning in the FAQ section of the tomato forum.

Yes, it really is best to remove the leaves and stems of the part that will be buried. But since you have already buried it it will do more harm to pull it up to remove them that it will to just leave it. The buried leaves will eventually rot allowing the new roots to develop from the stem. Tomato plants grow roots all along any part of the stem that has soil contact - thus the recommendation to plant them deeply
always a good practice.

Assuming this is a standard Early Girl which is an indeterminate variety, rather than the variety called Bush Early Girl and since you are only using a 5 gallon container, then yes, you will need to cut off all but 2 of those side stems. But check the tag to be sure because if it is a Bush EG, you don't have to remove them. Bush varieties are bred to grow that way...like a bush. ;)

Some trim to one stem but the plant will get quite tall (6') so in that small a container 2 stems will work better I think.

You'll find a great deal of info about all this over on the Growing Tomatoes forum here (linked at the top of this forum's front page) and there are also great FAQ's there on how to prune and how to grow in containers, feeding, staking the plants, etc. Be sure to check them out.

Enjoy your plant.

Dave

Like mentioned above, yes, remove them.
Its recommended that you actually pinch then with your thumb and pointer finger rather than clip them with shears. Reasoning is that your shears could carry disease to the tomatoe

Thanks guys. I didn't see the Tomato forum there, so thanks for pointing it out to me. I think what I might do is gentle move the soil away from the plant so that I can access the buried portion of the plant without disturbing it too much. Then, I'll pinch off all the leaves.

To remove all but two of the stems, do I just pinch them off at the soil level?

I grow my own tomato seedlings, and they're usually about 18 - 24 inches tall when I get around to setting them out. I bury most of the stem, leave maybe 8" of top growth, and just leave whatever leaves are on the stem part that gets buried. The whole buried stem shoots roots, but more on the leaf nodes.

Anywho, I've always worried about some sort of plant infection / disease getting into the open wound.

I don't think it makes all that much difference. Burying it does, though - the plants at the end of the season will be 2X the size of the ones that weren't :->

My thoughts exactly, David52.