No matter where you live, it’s never the wrong time of year to learn how and when to prune your tomatoes. Our growing season here in South Florida is just getting started while for others fall is fast approaching. But pruning tomatoes has always been one of those things that I KNOW I’m supposed to do, but always feel a bit clueless about. So that’s why I’m happy to have Ali’s post to share with you.
Ali is a tea-sipping blogger who focuses on healthy and sustainable living via her family blog Homey Improvements. She was born and raised in Alaska and dabbles in organic gardening, Pilates, and is a princess for hire for kid’s parties. Find her on Twitter @DIYfolks.
If you make room for just one plant in your veggie garden, it’s got to be the tomato. Tomatoes grown at home and plucked from the vine, warm from the sun and perfectly ripe, are so much better than anything you can get at the grocery store. You might not even recognize it as the same fruit.
Whether you start your tomatoes from seed or buy a starter pack from a local nursery, at some point they’re going to get too big for their britches. Tomatoes are vines, after all, and they can quickly get out of control if you don’t step up and show them who’s boss.
So grab your pruning shears and let’s get down to it. You don’t want that wild, overgrown tomato look any more!
Wait! You’ve Got to Know Your Variety First
Not all tomato plants actually need pruning, so slow your roll until you know which kind you planted. There are two types of tomato vines: determinate and indeterminate. Determinate vines control their own growth and don’t need your help: Do not prune them.
Indeterminate vines, on the other hand, just won’t quit. These are the ones you need to bring into line.
How do you know which you have? Most seed packets or nursery plant tags will have this information right on it. If not, just Google the name of the variety you planted to find out if it’s an indeterminate type that needs pruning.
When to Get to Work Pruning Your Tomatoes
About a month after you transplant your seedlings into the garden, it’s time to start checking them for sign of unruly behavior. To keep them from getting out of control, you need to make a promise to yourself to prune the plant once a week. Set up a recurring alert on your phone so you don’t forget.
It’s best to prune tomatoes first thing in the morning so they are still crisp and sturdy after the cool nighttime temperatures – branches snap off easily then. If you wait until the heat of midday, the limp stems will be harder to remove and may tear, leaving your plant susceptible to diseases that can make for some yucky tomatoes or outright kill your plant.
The Nitty Gritty: How to Prune Your Tomatoes
Now that you’re awake early in the morning to do your weekly pruning, you need to know what to look for. Follow these easy steps to keep your plants strong. Don’t worry about hurting them: Cutting away extra growth actually makes your plant stronger and allows it to put more energy into ripening fruit, which is the whole point.
- Use bypass pruning shears to make a clean cut, and wipe the blade off with some rubbing alcohol between plants to prevent diseases from spreading.
- Trim off any dead and yellowed leaves. These will usually be near the bottom of the plant, as it naturally sheds early leaves in its normal growth process.
- Check for signs of blight or other common tomato plant diseases. If your leaves have brown spots, mildew or any other sign of a problem, cut them off to prevent the issue from spreading.
- Check for crossed branches. When one plant gets out of bounds and starts invading another plant’s space, prune away the naughty branch so that everyone still gets a fair share of sunlight and airflow. If the offending offshoot has fruit on it, it’s your call as to whether you want to keep it or not.
- Get rid of suckers. These are new branches that pop out from the space between the main stem and a side leaf. They’re called suckers for a reason: They sap the energy from your main plant and lead to smaller crops if you let them have their way. Make sure you get them while they’re still smaller than a pencil. Just pinch the sucker at its base, bend it back and forth a couple times and it should snap right off, no blade required.
- Your last pruning session will be about a month before your first expected frost. Cut off the top of your central branch. This will stop its growth and put all the energy into ripening fruit while there’s still time.
That’s all there is to it! The hardest part about pruning is letting go of the idea that you might be cutting away beautiful future tomatoes. You’re not. Keeping your plant in check is what really brings in the harvest you want, so get out there and start cutting.
Do you have any other tomato tips or techniques? What are you favorite varieties to grow?
Pruning is far more important than people think when it comes to growing tomatoes, this article really will help novice gardeners who are trying to grow tomatoes.