I'm becoming more and more of a fan of this idea. Last spring, I trimmed some of the bottom ones real early then left the rest go. In the GH this fall and winter, I started trimming any that started to turn a little yellow. Honestly, I was worried at first, as I was taking a decent amount of foliage off each plant. But despite the lack of sunlight, they continued to grow and started blooming. Then the drought hit and the sun was MIA for three weeks. But the plants didn't turn brown.

Then the sun returned and temps warmed up - one day way too high and cooked a bunch of leaves. The plants in hydro lost 95 percent of their leaves, the dirt plants probably 25 percent. But they continued to grow fine, bloom and set fruit, a couple of hydro plants even without having more than a leaf or two.

So I'm being more aggressive in the garden this year. Each week, I walk down each row and if I see a stem with a leaf starting to yellow, it gets cut off and added to the compost bucket and then pile.

It seems to be paying off. The plants have significantly more fruit this year than at the same time as last year, though June was significantly wetter but not near as warm. The plants are shorter this year than last year but I don't eat leaves or stalks so I don't care about that!

One concern is my row of Better Boys. First year of growing them but they do not look quite right. The leaves are a pale green on several of them, especially the ones in soil that is sort of clayish. It is suppose to rain Monday-Wednesday, so I may give them a cup each of compost tea/tomato fertilizer (Tomato-tone dissolved in water)/Epsom salts.

Mike