When I plant my tomatoes, I remove all the limbs near the bottom. Any limb that, if it rains, rain could splash up onto the limbs. Here in Alabama, it is really easy for disease to splash up and cause blight and many other issues. Also, we can't let our tomatoes ripen on the vine. When they start to turn, we pull them and sit them in the window sill to ripen. Just so humid here that it just makes less work to pick before fully ripe. Good luck.