PRUNING TOMATOES
It’s time to chat about a little gardening maintenance for my tomatoes. I have 9 tomato plants that were all started on the same day, but ironically appear to be in different phases of development.
This is likely a result of the differences in sun exposure – 6 of them are partially shaded by a neighbor’s tree and 3 of them get really intense Texas sun.
The three plants that get full sun seem to look the biggest! They are measuring well over 17” and the other pants are about 9-12” tall.
I have been watering everything the same and even fertilized my plants with some tomato food a couple weeks back. You can learn more about what type of fertilizer I used and my experience with eggshells, here.
I was actually tipped off to prune my tomato plants from a comment I received on one of my Instagram photos. A gardening friend mentioned that I should get in there and prune my plants, so I decided to look into it. And if I’m being completely honest, I probably wouldn’t have KNOWN I needed to if it wasn’t for that friendly advice (so thank you!!).
Turns out, I think they were right!
TO PRUNE OR NOT TO PRUNE?
There’s a little bit of discussion among gardeners about whether to prune or not to prune. Most gardeners agree that pruning is good – especially for maximizing fruit production… which is why we’re growing anyways!
You may want to skip pruning tomatoes if you are growing a determinate breed. Per the Spruce, determinate plants develop all their fruit at one time so pruning may cause you to sacrifice tomatoes for no reason.
The main reason you want to prune is to allow your plant to direct its energy into making fruit, rather than more green leaves.
Note: most gardeners agree that pruning towards the bottom of the plant is beneficial whether you want to touch the rest of the plant or not. This allows for better air circulation and helps your tomato plant avoid diseases that can grow along the bottom foliage.
CONSIDERATIONS FOR PRUNING
Let’s explore the different types of tomatoes! Before you start getting scissor happy… you should be aware of which type of tomato plant you have. There’s two kinds: determinate and indeterminate.
DETERMINATE TOMATOES
INDETERMINATE TOMATOES
As the name suggests, these have a pre-determined size that they will mature to and stop. They grow into bushes and usually produce their fruit at one time and then die.
This type will grow as big as it can and takes a vine shape (instead of a bush) and are frequently referred to as, “vining tomatoes”. This is the type of tomato plant you want to prune, in order to encourage larger tomatoes (not lots of little tomatoes and foliage). These plants produce fruits throughout the season (not just in one bang).
- Celebrity tomatoes
- Roma tomatoes
- Lady fingers tomatoes
- Marglobe tomatoes
- Rutgers tomatoes
- Beefsteak tomatoes
- Big boy tomatoes
- Sungold tomates
- Cherry tomatoes
- San Marzano tomatoes
- Sweet million tomatoes
- Golden jubilee heirloom tomatoes (actually the majority of heirlooms are indeterminate)
WHEN DO YOU KNOW IT'S TIME TO PRUNE?
If you have an indeterminate tomato breed and can identify “suckers” then you’re ready to prune. A sucker is a little, smaller stem growing in between the main stem and the other stems that have leaves and yellow flowers. It should be a “baby stem” shooting out at about 45 degrees and should be in the middle… forming a y-shape. Once you identify the suckers, this is what you want to chop off.
As mentioned above, you want to ensure a ton of air circulation for your tomato plants! This means giving a hair cut to all growth below the first fruit cluster. Additionally, if leaves looks brown, wilted, or unhealthy – go ahead and snip that too.
One tip I found on Northern Homestead, was if you want to ripen fruit faster… you can stress your plant a bit and force it to produce fruit by removing some of its leaves! “Taking 2-4 leaves off every week, starting from the bottom as soon as fruit cluster develop, helps to have earlier ripe tomatoes.” Pretty interesting and something I want to try!
MY EXPERIENCE PRUNING TOMATOES
I learned a lot from watching this Epic Gardening YouTube video:
He also speaks to the considerations above (how your tomato breed determines your pruning strategy & how getting rid of the bottom growth is good) and shows you how to do it!
- First, locate the first flower bud.
- Next, remove all suckers below it. If it’s a baby sucker you can usually just snap it off with your hands, anything else – use clean pruning shears.
- Last, snip off any leaves that are touching the ground.
There’s not a clear and fast “rule” when it comes to pruning. It’s a little bit of guess work and gut feeling about which suckers should stay and what needs to be cut. I think that over time, you develop more gardening skills and intuition about where to snip.
I like to learn from watching others and find myself watching a bunch of gardening YouTube videos lately 😊 If you’re the same, let me know in the comments below what your favorite gardening videos and channels are!
Anyways, back to my pruning experience…. I went through all 9 plants and snipped my suckers away. I had my little garden tot helping me by gathering all the dropped suckers. We made it a cute little game to see how many she could collect (good times 😊). Of course, she wanted to cut the plant as well… which obviously didn’t happen because that would have been a nightmare (hahaha) and possibly resulted in having NO tomato plants left!
We plan to save these guys and propagate them in a cup of water. They should start to grow roots and will be ready to transplant into soil to make an entire new (and free) tomato plant. SO COOL!!
Let me know if you have any pruning tomato secrets that you swear by! I’m always down to learn more. Happy gardening!
1 Comment on PRUNING TOMATOES FOR THE FIRST TIME
Comments are closed.