Pruning tomatoes... it's one of those gardening topics that people get really
riled up about. But I am here to tell you that there is no definitive right or
wrong way to prune or train your tomatoes. Much like almost everything in
gardening it all comes down to personal preference, the area that you're gardening
in, the type of tomato that you're growing, and just a process of trial and
error to figure out what works best for you. Now that being said, I'm going to
show you today the system that I've figured out works the best for me and
maybe you can draw some little tidbits from that for your own garden. So the
first thing I want to mention, is that this is how I prune and train
indeterminate tomatoes. Determinate tomatoes I do a little differently and
I'm hoping to cover that in another video, but this is specifically for
indeterminate tomatoes. So my first step before anything even goes in the ground
is to put up a cow panel trellis. Now the concept of the cow panel trellis is
fairly simple. It's just driving three of these t-posts into the ground. I like to
do two on the outsides, one directly in the middle, and then tethering the cow
panel, and this is a 16-foot cow panel, to the t-post and doing it about two
feet off the ground or so. I usually just eyeball it so it's it's nothing exact.
But these are quite heavy, so you really want to use something to secure this
well. I usually strap it up with zip ties and then come back with thin pieces of
metal and twist them on with a wrench or metal or wire cutters or something, but
anything that's gonna keep that really secure because between the weight of
these tomatoes once they're close to maturity and any late summer storms
that you get coming through, you really don't want to take a chance of this
thing coming down. So after I get my trellis up I will plant three
indeterminate tomatoes per 16 foot trellis section, spacing them out evenly.
And this is to ensure that they have plenty of room to grow and a lot of good
air circulation. Now when you transplant the tomatoes
they're typically not even tall enough to reach the bottom of the cow panel so
I usually will put a little tiny bamboo post at the bottom, train them to that
post and then train them up the trellis as they grow. And you can see here- these
tomatoes have been in the ground for, since about the middle of May, so it's
been about two months now and they are already, well this one's almost, it is
over the top of the of the panel now. Once the plants are this size there are
two main things I'm focusing on, and that is both the pruning and the training.
So as these branches grow and while they're still supple, the easiest thing
to do is just kind of weave them in between the squares of this cow paneling
and that will act as a natural support. But what can happen if you're kind of
not out here every single day making sure that each new bit of growth is
interwoven amongst these panels is you can have these crazy branches grow out
and then there's really not a good way to weave them in without breaking them.
So that is where my handy-dandy velcro tape comes in and this stuff is just the
greatest thing for trellising tomatoes. So all I'm gonna do is snip off a length,
pin this up here someplace where it's out of the way of other branches, and
tape up that branch so that it stays secure. And I will just kind of continue
to do that all over the plant until I feel like everything is pretty secure.
Now my main reasons for pruning are to keep the plants from becoming just
totally unruly, for improved air circulation and by improving air
circulation reducing some of the fungal and bacterial diseases that can happen
with tomatoes especially in a humid summer climate like we have here. So when
I am pruning I am really only looking at clearing out any branches or leaves that
are touching the ground and then anything that is really plugging up the
center of the plant and not allowing for good air circulation, and then just any
branches that are just growing wonky and I can't I can't find a good
place to train them I will snip those off as well. So I'm
gonna get in here at the bottom of this plant and before I jump into pruning the
only other thing I will mention is that I do like to sanitize my pruning tool
between plants. Some people that have really bad disease pressure will
actually sanitized between cuts, I just do it between individual plants. The best
thing to use is probably a diluted bleach solution, I didn't have any of
that so I'm using a natural disinfectant that's made with thyme. But that's
basically helping to stop, if you have active disease going on, stopping
that spread. So the first thing I'm gonna do is get rid of this wonky branch. I
want to go completely flush or as flush as I can with the other branch and snip
that guy off of there. And so the next step is as I mentioned just to clear out
anything that is on or near touching the ground because some diseases are
actually spread from spore splash up from rainwater hitting the ground and
bouncing up on the plants, so this is a relatively easy way to avoid those types
of pathogens. And it just kind of depends on the mood I am in as to how heavy or
lightly I prune these guys. Some days I get really aggressive and some days I
don't do much. Now I will say, as I mentioned my my motto is kind of less is
more pruning that is not just because I hate pruning tomatoes I've also found
that in our growing climate that if you get overly aggressive on the pruning it
can lead to sun scald on the plants. We get a lot of intense sun in the summer
especially when tomatoes are ripening up and without a little shade protection
from this foliage cover they do tend to get sun scald. So you can see now just
with those few snips how much more this opens this up it's going to allow more
air circulation of the plant. I don't have any branches or leaves touching the
ground so overall this plants gonna be have
more of a chance to stay healthy longer into the season. Now I'm gonna do these
other three right quick here and show you kind of the before and afters.
Take time to pet the puppies. Huh? Pet da puppies, pet da puppies...
Now I'll come back through usually once a week or so if I'm really staying
on top of it and just weave in any limbs that have escaped or grown excessively
and kind of tie up anything and prune anything that's gotten out of hand. But
really it's just a few minutes once a week to keep the plants in check. Now
there are certainly situations where you can grow your tomatoes without even
fussing with pruning or training or doing any of this
but for ease of picking, for disease prevention, for healthy plants, all of
those benefits I really prefer this method. And I will
say, one of the kind of unexpected benefits of working this closely with my
tomato plants is that often I can spot little problems before they become big
problems. So I can't tell you the number of like tomato hornworms, tobacco
hornworms, armyworms that I've found on these plants when they're tiny, before
they do a lot of damage just because I'm in the plants working with them and I
can spot these things. One last thing I will say is you'll see a lot of people
mentioning suckers- that you should trim those off. Certainly if you come across
them, trim them off. There's really no reason not to. They're just gonna take energy
away from the plant. But I I don't find that you have to get like super paranoid
about finding every last sucker and getting rid of them to have a good yield
on healthy plants. So that's it, that's really my process for pruning and
training or trellising indeterminate tomatoes. If you have any additional tips
or have any suggestions for me I'd love to hear them-- I'm always learning and I
always love to hear what other people are doing. And if you find content like
this helpful please consider subscribing to my channel Growfully with Jenna.
Thanks for watching and I'll see you next time!