Question
Chicago, IL - My first time growing champion tomatoes.  My friend hurt his leg and was suppose to help me with these plants.  He told me I need to remove the leaves that crowd the buds.  It's like a fuzzy leaf.  I do have the yellow flower buds but I'm just not sure what this crowding leaf is that I need to remove and I don't want to remove the wrong one.  Have you ever heard of the champion tomatoes and can you help or advise me.

Answer
Kim, the only leaves that should be removed on tomato plants are the sucker branches.  The suckers are the growth that occurs between the main stem and the leaf axil of the flower stem. Eventually, if allowed to grow, they branch out into their own plant.  By leaving these on, the plant expends much of its energy into the new growth rather than producing tomatoes. You end up with more tomatoes over the long run, but sacrifice size and space.

The reason I prune the suckers is that I prefer the larger tomatoes and more compact growth.  Not only do you have a neater appearance to the plant, but you also have much better air circulation which means the plant is less prone to fungus diseases.  To prune, simply snap them off when
they are about 2" in length.

Unfortunately we cannot paste jpg. files or other pictures on All Experts due to the formatting they use.  However, I would be glad to send you a photo if you supply your email address.  If you're not comfortable doing this, attached are some websites that give decent illustrations of tomato
suckers.

http://msucares.com/pubs/infosheets/is0560.pdf

http://www.taunton.com/finegardening/pages/g00031.asp

http://ceinfo.unh.edu/pubs/HGPubs/baskweav.pdf#search='tomato%20suckers%20pinch'

http://www.extension.iastate.edu/Publications/PM608.pdf

http://msucares.com/lawn/garden/vegetables/tomatoes/

I hope these help.  Good luck, and please write again if I can ever be of assistance.

Regards,

Mike