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Growing Tomatoes

What, exactly is a sucker?

15 years ago

I've grown a tomato plant here and there for my entire life, and I've always heard to prune the suckers - but no one has ever sat me down and showed me one.

Deep inside my adult head, the 10-year-old mind is always looking for tentacular monstrosities with fierce teeth on long, wiry stalks. I've never found them.

The tomatoes generally turn out ok anyway. :)

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Comments (6)

bootster
15 years ago
Do a search. There is a good link posted here not to long ago.

Here is a link that might be useful: suckers
digdirt2
15 years ago
I've always heard to prune the suckers...

Pruning isn't required in any way so you might also want to review the FAQ's here (linked at the top of the page) and make a note of the one called "To Prune or Not to Prune".

Dave
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Could be polygonum, not a tree or even shrub really. More of an herbaceous plant, but having, as you mention, quite fibrous stems. It is very agressive, spreading by rhizomes-underground horizontal stems. Roundup will kill it, but it will take several applications, as new stems will continue to appear in new places for a while even after spraying. It sounds like you have little if any desireable vegetation in the way, which will make spraying it easier. There probably is another herbicide that will work faster, but Roundup will get it eventually, and is of very low hazard to the applicator and others who will use the area. +oM
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My Marie Bugnet doesn't sucker but Frau Dagmar is a suckering fool. She suckers out into the lawn and comes up in cracks in our asphalt street. I dug up 15 from one bush this year and could do it again. Yes Henry Hudson does too but not quite as bad. The pavement series of rugosas sucker quite a bit also. Would I plant them as a hedge across the front of my yard? No!!! Frau Dagmar is taller than Marie in my yard when mature. It would look good the first year but soon you'd be fighting the suckers. The first thing I'd do would be to prepare the beds for next spring's planting. Unless you're going to remove those trees that shade the rest of your roses, I'd move them to the new beds so they at least get morning sunlight. Otherwise, except for the few that do get sunlight, you're going to lose the rest to shade or ground ivy. If kept deadheaded and pruned they should fill out and would make a nice show from the street. Have you raised them out of the holes yet?
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Hello Angeline...I would be interested in one of your Arums. What are you looking for?
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Hi Sandy - we have a great FAQ here on pruning (just click on the FAQ's linked at the top of the page) and one of it's most important points is that you never prune determinate varieties. That's where the fruit are produced on them. Check it out. It will answer all your questions. ;) Dave PS: lots of prior discussions here on "pruning" and "suckers" that a search will pull up if you want to review them.
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dangsr_grow
15 years ago
You asked what is a sucker, well as your tomato plant starts to put out limbs look at where it grew out from the main trunk of the plant and if there is a little growth showing up in that crotch it is a sucker, I usually cut off the first two and let the next two form limbs and cut off all above. OOPS up above I said limbs and meant leaves, sorry I knew better.

DAN
dangsr_grow
15 years ago
You asked what is a sucker, well as your tomato plant starts to put out limbs look at where it grew out from the main trunk of the plant and if there is a little growth showing up in that crotch it is a sucker, I usually cut off the first two and let the next two form limbs and cut off all above. OOPS up above I said limbs and meant leaves, sorry I knew better.

DAN
turnd_out_diffurnt
15 years ago
I don't know (ok, actually, I do), but there's one born every minute.
windclimber
15 years ago
A squirrel and or a horn worm.
The first growth usually incapabale of formimg trusses, found at the intersection of a fully formed branch and the main stem.

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