>>848452Tomato vines are ground vines. They do better unstaked and sprawled out. However, we don't want our tomatoes on the ground, dirty, and insect-eaten so we stake them up. Now what this means is that tomatoes go in any direction you want them to grow. Just bend them in that direction and let them grow.
All the new shoots want to grow up regardless of their location on the plant. Allowing them to grow out the sides just means you can lay them horizontally if you wish.
Different species of tomatoes respond differently to various types of pruning. Determinate tomatoes don't like to be pruned as much since they don't continue to grow exponentially. Indeterminate tomatoes can be pruned just about any way and they will grow longer for years, given a good environment.
I find that cherry tomato varieties are great for horizontal growth for a while, to get them spread out then allow them vertical growth without pruning them. Beef steak varieties seem to do better as a single stem growing as tall as the section of leaves cover (lean the plant over and rest the bare stem on the ground as it gets longer and loses bottom leaves.)
>>848505If you do this, make sure to get a shredder type leaf vacuum, not a leaf blower specifically. Shredded leaves take many months less time to compost. However, if you have chickens, you can use big strong Contractor's trash bags to bag up the leaves for seasonal storage then use the leaves as litter in your chicken coop all year long. The chickens will shred the leaves for you. when you clean out the chicken coop you'll have shredded leaves and chicken manure all ready to be composted.
