Why I'm ignoring decades of gardening advice

Tomato season is creeping up on us again, which means my greenhouse is about to become home to another summer's worth of tomato plants, companion flowers, enthusiastic basil… and what I'm sure the tomatoes would describe as 'experimental management practices.' If you've been following along for the past year, you might remember that I committed a small act of horticultural rebellion last summer. For decades, the accepted wisdom has been that indeterminate tomatoes should be pruned. You pinch out all the laterals (or 'sideshoots'), train the plant up a single stem, remove the lower leaves to improve airflow, and generally keep everything tidy, disciplined and respectable. So naturally, I decided to test whether that advice was actually the best approach. One side of the greenhouse was managed the traditional way with every lateral pinched out, the plants were trained neatly upwards, and I removed the lower leaves as recommended to reduce disease. On the other side? Chaos…well…controlled chaos. The only pruning I did was removing a handful of leaves right at soil level where they were likely to become diseased. Other than that, I simply let the plants decide what sort of tomatoes they wanted to be...every lateral stayed and every branch was allowed to grow. I built them a support structure and stood back. The results honestly surprised me. Hi free subscribers, If you're even wondering what happened next, that's usually a sign you'll enjoy the paid posts. This is where the story gets juicy and the practical 'I learned about growing tomatoes from this' begins…