We walked the garden, and the tomatoes are going very well; they have doubled in size since we planted them three weeks ago. We pick off the suckers. Pruning tomato suckers is often recommended because the resulting new stem competes for nutrients with the original plant.
Your plant may have more fruit if you let the suckers grow, but the tomatoes will be smaller, and the plant will be more cumbersome, requiring a lot of effort to stake as the summer progresses. Pruning tomato suckers makes your plants more manageable and robust at the same time.
Pruning indeterminate tomato plants improves airflow and helps reduce disease, as leaves dry faster after rain, making them less susceptible to diseases that thrive in prolonged moisture. Pruning also makes it easier to spot easily camouflaged pests in a thick canopy of leaves. Pruning also speeds up fruit ripening.
We find new suckers every morning.
Today Sue and I would have been married thirty-five years!
We fed the baby before we jumped in the shower. Today we are going to Seal Beach to have lunch with Robin at the Yucatan Gill; I have been going there for almost 35 years! They know Mary, so the hottest thing they use for her is a dill pickle; they try to remove my vocal cords with their hottest sauces.
We arrived at 10:45 am and awaited Robin and Kathy. They came, and ten minutes later, the lights went out! No power means no cooking, so we drank and had a salad! It was an adventure!
We departed the restaurant carrying a Philly Cheese Steak for Jan (after all, it is National Cheese Steak Day).
We dropped it by her house and then headed home to visit Scout and the hair parlor. I get my 15-minute cut, and Mary gets her three-plus hour hairdo.
I returned home and, moved the drinking water, put steel cages around our two new additions to the garden; a concord grape and a Thompson seedless table grape. The taxes got some more attention, and I worked in the He-Shed for a bit.
At 4:30 pm, the text machine went off; Mary was calling for a ride. Since she was going to a CME event, I jumped in her car to make sure it was ready for tomorrow; it was full of gas and started right up, so I took The Silver Fox instead. We popped home, visited Scout, and then decided to go to the Elks for dinner and a little dancing.
The Grumps were playing, and the McCallan Longe was full, but they found us a table where we met up with Iris and Will and George, a single dancing man from the Fullerton Lodge. We chatted with him all evening until we departed around 8:00 pm. We danced several times, including to a waltz which Mary requested. Mary had the house salad and a cup of soup while I opted for the TJ Chicken. Will, wearing a white T-Shirt, did a full rack of chops. We made fun of him, but Mary, being a kind person, had an idea.
The T-Shirt was saved from becoming a polka-dot-marked dust rag!
By the time we got home, it was time to crash. I did my BP, which was 128/73 – 74; I am cured. I did, however, have five bottles of beer, one of which I shared with Iris. Maybe the Budweiser Zero needs to be added to my medicine box!
We turned off the lights at 10:00 pm after I took the baby outside for the late evening widdle. Tomorrow I will be a bachelor, so I plan to work in the garage, work on the lighting systems, and finish off the income taxes.
