This interests me, as I hope to grow tomatoes in the basement some winter (it's a fairly warm basement).

I do see some small suckers on your plant, but I'm surprised (since it was over 4' when you decapitated it) that I don't see any sizeable secondary stems (i.e. much longer suckers). The year I actually grew Juliet (outdoors; the only year there wasn't Late Blight), it had good secondary stems (suckers near the base of the plant) when much shorter than your plant is.

What size is the pot?

How many flower trusses do you have along the main stem?

Hi. The entire plant was (and is) under 4' when I "decapitated" it. I do have two longer suckers, which are now as long as branches, but it is difficult to see from the picture. One of the lower sucker branches is 6" taller than the top of the main stem. At this point, I have only pruned the very bottom, suckers and branches, off the plant and the top of the main stem. I may have to trim that lower sucker branch that is taller than the main stem but I am waiting on that.

The pot is a 5 gallon bucket. I have two flower trusses and the beginnings of 1 tomato growing at this point.

I admit the plant is a little Charlie Brown Christmas tree looking since I have been growing it from seed in front of a window and under 1 light. This is my first year growing indoors so I am learning as I go. Next year I will have a better lighting set up.

This post was edited by pretty.gurl on Thu, Mar 14, 13 at 6:24

First of all, I-am-not-an-expert.

Since you're trying for a shorter plant, I wouldn't remove any of the lower suckers (new suckers may appear later where you removed the first ones). You need stem length to get flower trusses, and the upper side stems (suckers) will probably have reached your 4' pruning height before they have any flower trusses. (That doesn't mean you need to remove them -- they'll put out a few leaves that will help the plant produce energy.)

I'm not sure how many leaves appear on the main stem before the plant makes the first flower truss (hopefully someone who knows will mention it). Or how many leaves there must be on a side stem (sucker) before the first flower truss.

But I do know that an indeterminate plant has 3 leaves between each flower truss, and from what I've seen that's true for branches (suckers) as well as the main stem. That pattern is programmed into its (indeterminate) genes: pruning doesn't make the plant put out flower trusses closer together.

When tomatoes are grown in the ground outdoors and you don't want disease organisms in the soil to splash onto the leaves in a rainstorm, there is an obvious advantage to removing lower leaves along the main stem, as well as the lower suckers which provide additional leaves. But growing indoors in disease-free potting mix in a limited-height situation (which I will have next year if I try to grow dwarfs on my basement workbench or shorter plants in two tiny east-facing bedroom windows), I would probably encourage any low sucker that appeared, since it would start giving me fruit at a lower height.

A 5-gallon bucket would certainly be too small for an unpruned Juliet. How much plant it will support indoors is something you'll find out.