Tomato Side Shoots
Tomatoes are naturally large spreading vines. Varieties that are not listed as determinate on the package will grow this way. Heritage and open-pollinated varieties are mostly indeterminate, meaning they will grow continuously as spreading vines, and if they are cherry tomatoes, produce more and more fruit all the while, until the frost kills them.
That's great: that's why cherry tomatoes are on the short list. They just keep growing larger and growing more fruit.
However, there can be too much of a good thing. As they grow, they like to send out more and more side branches. These will fill up your garden with tomato branches. The side shoots themselves have side shoots, so this is literally exponential growth we are talking about.
Therefore it's normal to pinch off some or all side branches while they are just starting out. (People also say the excessive leaf growth will use resources and slow the production of the fruit. I'm not sure this is true for vigorous cherry tomatoes, since every branch seems to produce more fruit. Space is the main issue with cherry tomatoes.)
It takes a bit of practice to spot the side shoots while they are small. They start out in the V where each of the tomato's big compound leaf stems meets its main stem. (The botical term for this spot where new stems emerge is called the leaf axil.) Left alone, the side shoots quickly grow into a full-fledged stem, with leaves, fruit, and... more side shoots of their own. Every single leaf spawns a side shoot, and every single side-shoot's leaves spawn their own side shoots.
I usually aim to allow a few branches on each plant, and pinch off all the rest. They grow so fast some always get away from me. If they're not in a bad place, I may let the extra one grow, or I may cut it off even if it's already somewhat large.
On the other hand, if you are totally out of vertical space, you can also cut stems off at the ends so they don't grow longer. But if you prevent all new growth, you will also prevent all new fruit. In that case, you might want to allow new side shoots to grow from below.
Harvesting Vegetables
I should have thought to talk about this earlier. I'm not sure how much of this is obvious.
For the leaf vegetables (arugula, mizuna, mustard, chard, basil), you can just keep harvesting the largest leaves, while always leaving enough leaf area on the plant so it can feed itself to grow more leaves or grow seed (if you want to collect seed). You don't need to cut them: just break the leaf stem off near the base.
By this time of year, arugula, mizuna, and mustard usually have also started growing tall seed stalks with only small leaves on them. You can still continue to harvest leaves off the seed stalks, and also you can eat the flowers (which are essentially the same as extremely tiny broccoli florets). Even the seed pods are edible, though I find them tough. Anyway, these are all good ones to collect your own seed from, to plant next year, so don't eat all the flowers and pods if you want to do that. When they dry out completely, you can collect the seed. (More about that in a future post.)
Pea pods may also be ready, depending on when you planted. They are tenderer if you pick smaller pods, of course. I have heard that they bear more peas if you don't let any pods mature, but I'm not sure if that's really true. Again, you may want to collect seeds for next year, in which case you'll have to let some pods mature, later when the plants are getting close to the end. (Pea plants finish and die by mid-summer.) Beans are young yet, but will be similar, except that climbing beans continue to produce beans all summer, slowing down gradually through the summer and into the fall.
Basil branches side shoots extensively, a lot like tomatoes do, but they are much smaller plants, so space is not an issue. What it does mean is that you can pick off the end clusters of branches, and let the new growth generate from those leaf axils. The supply of fresh leaves lasts until the first frost if you do this. When basil starts to get big, it will also start to produce flowers, and rumor has it that you should pull off the flowers to keep the plant growing actively, or for better tasting leaves. Again, of course, you will want to let some flowers mature at some point if you want to keep seed for next year. I do pick off the flowers as they form (before they open), and my plants keep going all summer and fall. At some point I pick a few whole large plants to make pesto with. In late summer I also let a few flower and produce seed.
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