Pruning tomatoes

[bomdabass]

Hi folks,

newcomer to this gardening malarkey and looking for advice on my tomatoes. They're not going up the way very fast, but seem to be going out the way. Grown from seed indoors, put outside 3 weeks ago. They ARE growing, just not sure if I need to be removing some of the lower branches. I have 6 spread across my veg patch similar to this.

Also, contrary to everything I've found on t'internet, the slugs in my garden like mint and are decimating it, any suggestions?

Thanks

B

 

[headfullofbees]

I strongly suspect that you have a vine tomato (cordon/indeterminate) rather than a bush (determinate), but if you can find out for definite, either yourself, or by posting the name of the variety. If it is a bush, carry on as you are and ignore the advice below.
Your plant looks like it is in very good condition.
To help to keep it like that, I suggest you remove everything from the stem that is below the Velcro plant tie.
Just above that tie, you can see a tiny green shoot, growing between the leaf & the stem; it is called a side-shoot, or sucker, & should be removed when it's a little bigger and easier to handle.
NOTE: DO NOT remove anything which looks similar, but is not growing from that precise position between leaf & stem, as the clusters of flowers, which grow into tomatoes, look quite similar when they are very small, but grow out from the stem between leaves.