Tomato Plant Pruning for Beginning Gardeners

Keeping tomato plants maintained and understanding the growing process are two of the keys to a bountiful tomato harvest. When a gardener is pruning tomatoes, it is helpful to understand the reason behind pruning, as well as knowing exactly what to look for. The practice always seems to raise a lot of questions from would-be tomato gardeners, and I'll clear up some of those mysteries here.

Pruning tomatoes correctly really begins with understanding a simple concept: sucker branches. To find what tomato growers term "sucker branches," or just "suckers," one should look at the stem of the tomato plant. While looking at the stem, the gardener should next locate the leaf branches that are growing off of the stem. There will be several of these around the plant, going up the stem. Now, if the gardener looks carefully, the tomato plant will sometimes put out an extra vine right at the intersection where the leaf stem meets the main stem. This can happen anywhere on the plant, but it is most noticeable on the lowest leaf branches because they are the largest. These small vines are actually side shoots, and if left to grow they would form a second stem for the tomato plant. Tomato growers term these shoots "suckers," probably because they will suck valuable sugars and nutrients away from the main body of the tomato plant. (If there is any confusion, the sucker branch is the vine that does not have leaves on it.) These sucker branches will be the target of any pruning.

Before discussing the pruning method, one word of warning is very applicable when pruning tomatoes: do not ever prune or tie the tomato plants when the plant is wet. Doing so can seriously damage the plant.

With that admonition aside, the best pruning method is relatively simple. After planting the young tomato, the first step that the gardener should take is to keep an eye on it and remove all of the sucker branches. Most gardeners prefer to pull off the sucker branches using their hands; this is probably the best method because a blade can leave an open wound on the plant. If you do use garden shears, make sure the blade is sterile as fungus and other disease can be transmitted by these tools. Tomato plants are very susceptible to infection, which is why the thumb-and-forefinger option is usually the method of choice for gardeners. It can seem like a lot of waiting, but the gardener needs to resist the urge to "do something" early on, and give the tomato plant time to grow a strong, healthy stem on its own. Good advice is to wait until the tomato flowers.

After the plant flowers for the first time, the gardener should set a trellis or stake next to the plant, and tie the tomato to the stake. Once this is accomplished, the pruning method is quite simple: prune away any sucker branches, and keep the leaves of the tomato plant off of the dirt. Any low-hanging leaves that touch the soil should be gently pruned away. (Keeping the leaves from touching the soil also helps to minimize the risk of disease to the plant). Pruning tomatoes is fairly easy to learn, and this method is sufficient to take good care of a tomato plant. Hopefully, it will result in a delicious harvest of fruit!


For more info on pruning tomatoes visit TomatoGardeningSecrets.com