The rains and hot weather of late June and early July make our tomato plants grow with abandon. It’s time to give them a trim to ensure a continued harvest throughout the growing season.
There are two types of tomatoes – determinate and indeterminate.
Just as the name implies, determinate varieties tend to have a predetermined amount of tomatoes all at once, usually within a two-week time period. These include varieties such as Roma or San Marino. When they’re done, they’re done.
On the other hand, indeterminate tomato cultivars such as Cherokee Purple, BetterBoy and cherry cultivars are vining varieties. They will continue to produce blossoms and set fruit throughout the growing season. They will also need to be trellised. You only want to trim indeterminate varieties.
If you’re not sure which type you have, do this simple check.
- Indeterminate varieties have growing tips that end in leaves.
- Determinate tomatoes have growing tips that end in flower clusters, and eventually fruit.
Trimming will allow your plant to focus its energy into producing fruit, allow for more air flow, and therefore, decrease fungal and bacterial issues. Be sure your hands are clean and your pruners
are decontaminated with rubbing alcohol to reduce the risk of spreading disease between your plants. You will want to do this between plants as well.
You’ve determined that you have indeterminate tomatoes, now let’s trim them.
You are going to remove the bottommost leaves of the plant, especially if they are touching the ground and any dried up or sick looking leaves. After you have done that, you need to identify suckers. They will form in the elbow area between the main branch and side branches. Suckers are branches that form in the leaf axils – the junctions between the true leaves and the main stem.
Next, identify the lowest flower/fruit cluster on the plant (i.e., the flower/fruit cluster closest to the ground. Remove every sucker from the plant except for the first one below the lowest flower/fruit cluster. That sucker is the strongest one on the plant and should be left to grow and bear fruit as a second stem.
Continue to prune your plants every two weeks, repeating the above instructions. You should enjoy delicious tomatoes until the first frosts.
Looking for more information: https://hort.extension.wisc.edu/articles/tomato-pruning/.
Holly Cole is a Cherokee County Certified Master Gardener. Email comments to her at atreegrows12@gmail.com.