Pruning tomatoes Video

By: Guest More than a year ago

I like your videos, but have one problem. The commercials at the beginning of some videos are extremely LOUD! I turn down the volume, then have to turn it up again to hear the video. Is there anything you can do about this? It is really annoying.

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By: Guest More than a year ago

Unless I missed it, you didnt show how to prune...talked about it, but didnt show it...hmmmmm, not helpful

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By: Guest More than a year ago

very helpfull, excellant..

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By: Guest More than a year ago

it sucks

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By: Guest More than a year ago

thank you so much for the video Awesome. it has helped me with my plants. thanks again

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By: billross@wou More than a year ago

This video was 5 stars way up. Why? Because it showed and explained. It showed how the "leader" erupts right from the main stalk. It showed the weaving of an economical trellis. It explained the difference between the keeper growth and the "this has to go because it is a sucker" growth. Epstein is the gardener's friend!

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How to Prune Tomatoes

Pruning tomatoes is one of the easiest and most beneficial things you can do to increase fruit size and help lessen the chances of disease. First, let's talk about which tomatoes to prune. Indeterminate (climbing) tomatoes should be staked, trellised, or caged, and pruned for best results. Determinate (bush) tomatoes do not need pruning and may be grown with or without support. Now what is the difference? The fruit of determinate tomatoes ripens within a concentrated time period. The fruit of indeterminate tomato varieties ripens over an extended period, and will continue to grow until they are affected by the first hard frost. For example, you may have purchased a container tomato plant for your patio. Typically, the tomatoes commercially available in containers are determinate and do not need pruning. However, you still should give it some support. On the other hand, the cherry tomato plant in your garden is most likely an indeterminate plant – if you don't keep it in check, it might take over! The basic method of pruning is to remove the suckers from the leaf axils of the tomato plant. The sucker is the growth that comes up between the main leader of the plant and the side branches. There are a couple of schools of thought on removing suckers. Some people remove all the suckers. Some leave the first sucker after the first set of flowers. This gives you two leaders. I do the latter. Why are we doing this? If you remove the suckers you will have larger, sweeter, and, in my opinion, healthier tomatoes. If you leave them you will get more tomatoes, but the plant is more susceptible to disease and other health issues. If you have not removed any suckers all season and they have grown out of control, you should be careful about taking off the entire sucker, as it could cause too much sun to hit the developing fruit. In this case remove parts of the sucker to the last set of leaves. This is called Missouri pruning, where you pinch just the tip of the sucker, letting one or two leaves remain. This gives the plant more leaves and thus more photosynthesis and aids in protecting developing fruit from sun-scald. In this case, suckers should be removed gradually, over a period of a week or more, so the plant is not shocked too much.

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Growing Tomatoes: Pruning and Staking for More Fru

Growing tomatoes is easy, when you use proper pruning and staking techniques. Pruning helps produce jucier, tastier fruit. Staking prmotes general tomato plant health for higher tomato yield!

http://www.articlesbase.com/gardening-articles/growing-tomatoes-pruning-and-staking-for-more-fruit-337362.html/9461024403

[Music Playing]

Dave: Hi! I am Dave Epstein. Welcome to Growing Wisdom. In my home state of Maine, what a pleasure to be here with Howard Anderson and we are standing up an Albion, Maine, Johnny’s Selected Seeds and these are all tomatoes behind us.

Howard: Yes.

Dave: So, do you want to tell us about how and when we should prune?

Howard: Well, we prune throughout the season starting when the suckers on the plants will be about two to three inches long. And we do this to increase yields and to help reduce disease pressure on the plants. We prune to two leaders and take all the suckers off in between and as the plants grow up, we will through them out on the stakes.

Dave: So, talk about this leader business.

Howard. Okay. This is your first leader. This comes out of your main stem. Below your first flower cluster, this first sucker now becomes your second leader. So, we are going to leave these two as your main growing points and then we are going to take out all these other suckers that are in the leaf axles along down the stem.

Dave: So, how would you do that?

Howard: You do that with your fingers. You pinch that sucker out of the leaf axles.

Dave: And you go through and do all the rest.

Howard: All the rest. All the way down to the base.

Dave: And what does that do for the plant?

Howard: It will invigorate it and support more growth into these leaders and putting more fruit on.

Dave: How often would I have to do this in sort of a normal growing season?

Howard: Every week to ten days.

Dave: Should I do this in the morning, in the evening, does it matter?

Howard: It does not matter, as long as the leaves are not wet, so you are not spreading disease.

Dave: Should we prune all types of tomatoes.

Howard: Determine the tomato. For tomatoes that are more bush types, we still do not require pruning. They got to be about three foot tall and most of these here are called indeterminate which continues to grow throughout the season until frost comes. They leaves us determining or indetermining more seed catalogues.

Dave: So, the indeterminate ones are the ones that we have to stake and we also have to take the suckers out.

Howard: Correct.

Dave: What is this that we are doing here?

Howard: This is called basket weaving. Take the string, round it around the stake and weave it around the plant. When you get to the far end, you turn around and come back and we got the other side of the plant and the fact of making a trellis for the plant as to grow up through. As the plant grows, we will add more strings to the stake.

Dave: Speaking of “as it grows”, Maine got very high during the course of the year. Is there a point when I should just stop it from growing any higher?

Howard: At about 30 days before your first frost, you would take off the growing points at the ends where the leaders we are pruning and that will force the plant into making those last set of fruit ripen up before frosting.

Dave: Howard, this has been great and I really appreciate your time here. Beautiful setting. We hope you enjoyed all of our tips here on tomato pruning and growing. Hope you will come back every week for all of our tips, hints and helps at GrowingWisdom.com.

[Music Playing]

Transcription by: Scribe4you Transcription Services

How to Prune Tomatoes

Pruning tomatoes -

Pruning tomatoes -