You're Pruning Tomatoes WRONG! This Mistake Will DESTROY Your Harvest!
Вставка
- Опубліковано 25 чер 2024
- In this video, I share why you're probably pruning tomatoes wrong. Most tomato pruning advice online is given without context. As a result, many gardeners are pruning tomato plants incorrectly, and this mistake will destroy your harvest by greatly reducing fruit set. This video clarifies how to prune tomatoes correctly once and for all!
One of the most common bits of tomato pruning advice given is to remove suckers from tomato plants. In reality, removing suckers from tomato plants will dramatically reduce your tomato harvest. Many tomato plants should not have their suckers removed, and if you're growing tomato varieties that can tolerate sucker removal, it's important to have a plan before you remove them. This video will explain exactly when it's OK to remove tomato suckers, because it probably isn't what you've been told!
These gardening products* will help you grow tomatoes and keep them healthy:
Fabric Grow Bags (many sizes): amzn.to/44IcIIn
Plastic Nursery Containers (many sizes): amzn.to/3XQErVf
40% Shade Cloth (various sizes): amzn.to/3DijfOi
Jobe's Organic Tomato Fertilizer (4lbs): amzn.to/3CNw9nk
Jobes Bone Meal (4lb): amzn.to/3Gqp52e
Alaska Fish Fertilizer: amzn.to/3XP5EHU
Jack's All Purpose 20-20-20 (1.5lb): amzn.to/3MQ4I2A
MiracleGro Tomato 18-18-21 (3lb): amzn.to/3Y6lo9H
Jack's / JR Peters All Purpose 20-20-20 (25lb): amzn.to/44DUV58
Grow More All Purpose 20-20-20 (25 lb): amzn.to/44pSQK2
Full Amazon Store*: www.amazon.com/shop/themillen...
TABLE OF CONTENTS
0:00 The #1 Tomato Pruning Myth
2:54 When You Should NEVER Remove Suckers
4:24 1st Reason To Prune Indeterminate Tomatoes
5:49 2nd Reason To Prune Indeterminate Tomatoes
8:12 3rd Reason To Prune Indeterminate Tomatoes
9:24 Why I Almost NEVER Prune Cherry Tomatoes
10:54 Why I Stopped Removing Diseased Leaves
12:19 Summary Of My Tomato Pruning Technique
14:17 Adventures With Dale
If you have any questions about how to grow tomatoes, have questions about growing fruit trees or want to know about the things I grow in my raised bed vegetable garden and edible landscaping food forest, are looking for more gardening tips and tricks and garden hacks, have questions about vegetable gardening and organic gardening in general, or want to share some DIY and "how to" garden tips and gardening hacks of your own, please ask in the Comments below!
****************************************
VISIT MY AMAZON STOREFRONT FOR PRODUCTS I USE MOST OFTEN IN MY GARDEN*
www.amazon.com/shop/themillen...
****************************************
VISIT MY MERCHANDISE STORE
shop.spreadshirt.com/themille...
****************************************
SUPPORT MY SECOND CHANNEL!
/ 2minutegardentips
****************************************
EQUIPMENT I MOST OFTEN USE IN MY GARDEN*:
Miracle-Gro Soluble All Purpose Plant Food amzn.to/3qNPkXk
Miracle-Gro Soluble Bloom Booster Plant Food amzn.to/2GKYG0j
Miracle-Gro Soluble Tomato Plant Food amzn.to/2GDgJ8n
Jack's Fertilizer, 20-20-20, 25 lb. amzn.to/3CW6xCK
Southern Ag Liquid Copper Fungicide amzn.to/2HTCKRd
Southern Ag Natural Pyrethrin Concentrate amzn.to/2UHSNGE
Monterey Organic Spinosad Concentrate amzn.to/3qOU8f5
Safer Brand Caterpillar Killer (BT Concentrate) amzn.to/2SMXL8D
Cordless ULV Fogger Machine amzn.to/36e96Sl
Weed Barrier with UV Resistance amzn.to/3yp3MaJ
Organza Bags (Fig-size) amzn.to/3AyaMUz
Organza Bags (Tomato-size) amzn.to/36fy4Re
Injection Molded Nursery Pots amzn.to/3AucVAB
Heavy Duty Plant Grow Bags amzn.to/2UqvsgC
6.5 Inch Hand Pruner Pruning Shears amzn.to/3jHI1yL
Japanese Pruning Saw with Blade amzn.to/3wjpw6o
Double Tomato Hooks with Twine amzn.to/3Awptr9
String Trellis Tomato Support Clips amzn.to/3wiBjlB
Nylon Mason Line, 500FT amzn.to/3wd9cEo
Expandable Vinyl Garden Tape amzn.to/3jL7JCI
****************************************
SOCIAL MEDIA
Follow Me on TWITTER (@NCGardening) / ncgardening
Follow Me on INSTAGRAM / millennialgardener_nc
****************************************
ABOUT MY GARDEN
Location: Southeastern NC, Brunswick County (Wilmington area)
34.1°N Latitude
Zone 8A
****************************************
*As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
© The Millennial Gardener
#gardening #garden #gardeningtips #tomatoplants #tomatoes
If you enjoyed this video, please “Like” and share to help increase its reach! Thanks for watching 😊TIMESTAMPS for convenience:
0:00 The #1 Tomato Pruning Myth
2:54 When You Should NEVER Remove Suckers
4:24 1st Reason To Prune Indeterminate Tomatoes
5:49 2nd Reason To Prune Indeterminate Tomatoes
8:12 3rd Reason To Prune Indeterminate Tomatoes
9:24 Why I Almost NEVER Prune Cherry Tomatoes
10:54 Why I Stopped Removing Diseased Leaves
12:19 Summary Of My Tomato Pruning Technique
14:17 Adventures With Dale
Dale is a genius!!! LOL. 😂😂😂😂. He just tickles me to death with all that cuteness. ❤❤❤❤
😂 today was the time I had to prune today. 😢
you're the one that is wrong regarding not pruning the suckers. Yes you get more flowers, yes you get more unripe tomatoes, but at the end of the season, your total production will be crappier, because the plant cannot support that many and ripen them before the season ends. That or the fruit will be quite smaller... Single stem and getting many kilo's of tomatoes from a single plant, good size etc.
This video from the guy who whinges all the time about disease and varmint pressure.
I prune my tomatoes so that they get air, and whenever I don't do that, the plants get sick and I get ZERO harvest. Don't be greedy, cause only healthy plants produce well. I need to force myself to prune a LOT, just because I experienced the problems when I don't.
3sq ft? Planted "no prune" "wild" tomatoes a few years back. Covered 9sq ft each. A second attempt with pruning two years later yielded far better results.
Beefsteaks: I prune weak suckers because they will break under the fruit's weight anyhow. Got a new variety this year: Less than 5ft tall plant, lower half hangs full, the flowers at the top all turn brown. And soon it is time to prune flowers cause the fruit won't grow before first frost anyhow.
I got the brown rot. If I remove brown leafs right at the start, it remains manageable. Whenever I am lazy, it spreads rapidly, infects the stems and fruits and I lose my harvest. Removing dieased leafs is NECESSARY. TY.
TL, DR: You cry about disease pressure, but if I treated my plants like you, I would get zero harvest.
I need to prune intensively, cause whenever I was lazy, I experienced massive problems both with brown rot, wilt, and even some vermins that ate my fruits (and I got only brown leftover crumbs underneath my plants).
My dad grew tomatoes and cucumbers commercially. They always removed the suckers and I think it's so they didn't get a bunch of small fruit. Due to the energy going to the suckers by taking them off it produced bigger tomatoes which would make sense.
I'm not asking a question about what was in the video I'm referring to when I was growing up.
the other part of this is basically instead of having a second stem come from that same plant and root system, you can still have a second stem there, just growing from a second plant/root system. you'll get more roots faster that way than if you had a single plant try to expand into all that root space. so overall it's more fruit per square foot to do single stems.
@@jjbasson exactly
I don’t prune suckers and my fruits are huge. I think pruning to single stem started with professional growers because that was staking method that became popular and prevents fungal diseases. But they also plant way more tomato plants. When you don’t single stem you need to give indeterminates 3-4 feet of space. Single stem only really needs 12”. And you can pack the plants in.
This year was my first year where I didn't prune suckers off. I got a bad case of poison ivy that kept me out of the garden for several weeks and so by the time I went back to the garden, the suckers and plants were out of control....lol. Now, I'm at the point where I have a ton of tomatoes, but only the first ones on the vine are a good size, the rest are smaller. I was wondering if it was from not pruning suckers and all the leaves sucking energy from the plant, or whether some of the plants cross bred with my cherry tomatoes (not sure if that's even possible). I'm disappointed that the tomatoes are small, now they are ripening up and need to be picked, but not really sandwich slice size. I think next year I will go back to removing a good amount of suckers.
I grow them with vertical support, so I usually put them closer together anyway.
@@ashdav9980 yes the new growth pulls the energy away from the current fruit development. I did the straw bale method this year and have had amazing results. 5 bales, I bought Bale Buster off of Amazon for prepping the bales.
From my experience, I pick off the suckers until the main stem is thick and strong - then I allow suckers. This seems to work best for me.
likewise
But if you let the plant go without removing any suckers for say the first 2 feet of vertical growth, then the plant grows slower and makes a bigger stalk. I also wait to stake them for a while so the main stem gets really thick, esp here on the florida coast with constant wind. But at around 2 ft tall I start pruning suckers selectively. If you prune and stake from the start you get lanky flimsy vines because the plant keeps pushing vertically and relies on the stake for support.
I like to encourage a giant root system in the beginning by loosening the soil down 2 ft or more and creating a hole about that size. I pack it full of peat, manure, compost and perlite.. my plants get enormous with huge yields. Four or five foot square beasts. But I am doing this with a variety like 'fourth of July'. I trim to get air flow and keep leaves off the ground. Fertilize regularly of course. I use cages and sometimes need stakes as the sucker branches grow large. Never thought to try another way though it would be interesting to do both methods and compare outcomes.
@@ReapingTheHarvest exactly..!
@ReapingTheHarvest, thank you. This makes sense and explains my really tall weak plants last summer!!
I've been growing tomatoes for years. My grandmother taught me to prune the suckers, as have all of my friends and neighbors. I do the opposite. I remove the lower limb and leave the sucker which results in a boatload of tomatoes!! Glad I'm not the only one who does it this way.
That’s why it’s called a sucker, it is stronger at sucking up the needed nutrients to make flowers, hence tomatoes. I do it sort of 50/50. Some suckers get pinched off while others I remove the lower stem as you do… guess it depends on the looks of each, which looks stronger and the location also. My neighbor said there had to be a balance of leaves to flowers, because too few leaves couldn’t provide enough energy to make enough flowers, or ripen the resulting tomatoes. Too many leaves use up all the nutrients and few flowers result or flowers are covered by leaves and cannot be pollinated by bees. It’s all about balance 👩🏼🌾!
I am same way I just let them grow and get a butt load of maters!
this is how i do it as well. I still trim off branches for airflow that arent suckers but the sucker branches themselves stay on the plant. Which in turn branches off that will also get pruned.
If you want lots of smaller, lets nutrient dense fruit, keep your suckers. Trim your suckers in order to have larger, healthier fruit.
My growing season is too short to allow all the suckers to grow. I must pinch some off so the energy can go to the flowers and already forming tomatoes. 😊
That is the biggest determining factor for me. I have a short growing season, so I give my plants fertilizer in the hole, then later worked into the ground to help them grow faster. I want those plants on speed to produce. If I lived in kalyfornia, it would of course be different. No frost dates to worry about either early or late in the season. All the time in the world to grow and experiment with/without suckers.
Dear Dale - I have taught organic horticulture my whole life, in the UK and grown tomatoes all my life and I learned from your video - you are an excellent, excellent teacher. Thank you so much.
Thank you so much for being a great vessel of knowledge and spilling it upon us!!! I, as many many others have learned a lot from you!
I may be opening my mouth and "removing all doubt" of my stupidity, but here goes. 😂
With the coming of first fall frost I would think pruning suckers in late summer or early fall (in cooler climates) when new suckers WONT have time to grow AND produce would allow more energy to the established plant in the "end of season" crunch.
I just think it could be another factor in deciding TO prune.
@@davidlaughlin5715this is true. It depends on climate very much of what to prune out. Colder climates don’t have a huge window to ripen tomatoes.
if thats the case wtf have you been doing for 25 years? do you bang your head against a wall? This guy is funny but thats all he is
😊
From a very youg boy, up into high-school, my parents grew big crops, for food and to sell. Never, in my lifetime of working with them, on these crops, did they ever pinch or cut back anything. We always had an abundance.
Our familes were farmers and tomatoes were just tomatoes and were never staked or realized. They grew randomly in the ground. We had garden space to not worry about it. I was too young to know about diseases or pests but we always had plenty to eat and can.
Pruning the suckers isn't for more tomatoes, its for higher quality fruit and you start to get fruit earlier as the plant isnt wasting energy on suckers.
james, all this talk about cutting back and pinching is so unnecessary. I agree with you I just let mine grow unless I see a limb touching the ground.
EXTREMELY HELPFUL. Another gardening channel tells us to prune off suckers to make the main vine stronger than trying to support any extra branches. But what you say makes SO MUCH MORE SENSE...and I BELIEVE IN YOU!!! Thank you so much for always being so detailed and descriptive, explaining all the reasons why. You are SO knowledgeable. Thank you so much!!!
What I liked best was, its not simply about removing all of the suckers or none of the suckers. Starting at 4:24. Your "3 reasons why you may want to prune your indeterminate tomatoes" provides a basis for determining what approach may be best for our individual circumstances and objectives. Well done.
I always thought that pruning off some of the suckers was to root them for more plants.
We call suckers "side-shoots" here in the UK. I grew tomatoes commercially for years. You start by implying that the removal of "suckers" is a very bad thing to do. But then you qualify it, depending on the method of training, variety, type, spacing, indoor / outdoor, etc, etc. Commercial growers of tomatoes will always remove suckers / side shoots because it will maximise the overall yield of the crop (not just one plant), maximise quality in terms of size, ripening and pest / disease control. Basically, it will improve crop management. Will it DESTROY your harvest? No.
I respect your experience, but commercial growers know how to garden to make money. Most of us are gardening to make our own food. It isn’t the same goal and certainly isn’t the same product. Especially when it comes to tomatoes. Ask anyone their opinion of store bought tomatoes anywhere in the world, it is the same answer. There is little tomato taste.
My hubby grew tomatoes. He asked me why I cut a sucker, cuz he NEVER did....he was right. Thank you!! You get a subscription!! Jeannie in Lakeport. I am 60. First time ever tried gardening last year....hubby has heart failure, cannot garden anymore, so, I tried...will do better this year!!
I noticed that suckers later on bear fruits….hence quit pruning them against all advice. You’re the first one to speak my mind! Thank you 🙏
Of course they do, but if you want a better quality and better size tomato you prune
You can still prune the suckers. Put them in water. After they root well, plant them. Then you have a head start from starting from a seed. Also you'll have later fruit from a new plant.
The suckers also start their fruit clusters after fewer leaves, compared to the central main vine. I think it's a decent compromise to leave some suckers in place but top the suckers so that they themselves don't vine out too far.
Thank you! I'm an older gardener that runs out of energy. You explained it SO well that I can do the minimal pruning on my determinates and just the lower branches below the flowers on my determinates.
This is the clearest to-the-point tomato pruning video I've come across. Thank you for this!
Thank you. I overpruned my tomatoes last year and had a very low yield. I learned the hard way. Thank you for breaking down.
Totally agree! This has been my experience the past 20 years, so I only prune as needed for air flow & get rid of disease leaves & the lower ones. I always get plenty of tomatoes. Nice to hear from an experienced gardener who feels the same too since many UA-camr gardeners I watch usually recommend pruning off suckers.
Hi. Not being a very experienced gardener the first few years I grew tomatoes I never realised about pruning. I then started to listen to advice telling me to do so. Looking back now after your video I remember how much more productive and easy it was originally. Many thanks I will now let them grow again.
You should not listen to this guy, this is really bad advice.... while you may not want to prune all of them off doing so will definitely result in better tasting and bigger tomatoes.
It depends on what kind of tomatoes you have
Prune early and root them. More plants
Same!
@@gamerclownz2783quit pushing this myth. Its simply not true.
You are amazing and you have taught me so much about the things a farmers daughter knows but has forgotten or brushed away.
I remember my gramps growing tomatoes the size of large grapefruits.
As they grew he wove them around & into an 8ft teepee shaped iron frame and never cut them back the tomatoes literally hung inside the frame for easy picking.
He never was plagued with disease as he used corn starch n a light salt spray on the garden
Toward the end he sprayed with water to remove the build up and let the chickens n rabbits finish n enjoy them..
We had hundreds of quarts of tomatoes every way and gallons of fresh juice. You remind me of my papa n your love matches his..in the garden. Thank you!!
Whewww what a roller-coaster. I grew up never suckering unless I was dealing with disease or if the plants were out of control. Then, about 5 years ago, I started suckering like crazy to manage air flow, disease and working with the assumption that less "green" growth = more "red" growth. But now that I hear your explanation I think I swung the pendulum too far in the wrong direction. Back to balance this year! Thanks!
All my tomatoes are indeterminate. I only take off suckers (side shoots) to make new tomatoe plants. I put the suckers in water and they will have rooted in a week or sometimes even less. I then plant out these rooted suckers (Cuttings) and hey presto I have a new plant. I choose the best plants to take these suckers from for rooting.. When I don't take out the suckers I get more tomatoes but smaller overall. This is such a quick way to increase tomatoe plants when shop purchased they are really expensive,
The problem is that for a lot of growers, the season isn't long enough to do that
I do that too
I am in Florida and do this as well. Have a dozen friends that have tomato plants from my garden. Plants can be expensive. I have given away so many starter plants to friends of bananas, avocado, Papaya and others. Don’t charge for them, just have the satisfaction of introducing friends into gardening.
I end up having way too many young tomato plants from propagating the suckers. I mostly give them away, but by late summer, I caution adoptive parents that the vine won't have enough time outdoors to give them fruit. But if they can raise the plant indoors, they can get winter tomatoes.
Over the winter, I grow my suckers, then propagate THEIR suckers. In this way, I keep the plant going and even if I don't take it to the fruiting stage, I have tomato plants ready to go into the garden come spring. Very useful for varieties I don't have seeds for, exceptional varieties, expensive varieties, and hybrids.
Yep, definitely a lightbulb moment and 100% applicable to the indeterminates I'm planning for next year. I will be rewatching this several times. Thank you very much. Your information is always clearly explained and very relevant. I appreciate you.
This is one of the (many) things I love about tomatoes - they are so versatile! You can grow them in so many different ways, depending on your space, support structure, etc.
There are so many different great types. Growing a diverse selection is key.
I watch the one channel here where the family grows commercially and the hundreds of tomato plants just lay in the field on the ground and vine out uncontrolled just like mother nature would do. Thousands of tomatoes without all the coddling and work.
@@afriendtoo6971 Yes, that is one way of doing it. But that method will not be the best in all climates and with all varieties. For example, I know there are Italians who grow their semi-determinate sauce tomatoes like this - they just walk through and harvest lots of tomatoes in a short space of time, and don't care if the plants are dying. But if you have a wetter growing season you might not get a crop before the fungal diseases destroy the plant, and if you grow indeterminate plants it will be very difficult to harvest (I've tried this - you don't even see half the fruit, let alone get to them). So if you want to grow them "wild" (without pruning) the best way is to buy or build a big tomato cage and grow them off the ground (see "the Tomato Man" - he grows them like this... he doesn't spray).
Second-year, noob gardener here. Thank you!
Last year, I had one tomato plant which only produced four tomatoes before the summer's heat (I'm in Texas) killed everything. This year, I have six tomato plants, and there's TEN tomatoes growing on them this morning! I found your channel to learn how to better care for my garden, and this is the tomato video I needed.
I've been doing it wrong all this time! Thank you. Kathy
If we're talking about branching, topping indeterminates early (when they're like 18" tall) allows you to create multiple primary stems low on the plant. You can then spread them out and trellis them (and subsequent suckers/branches) for max yield while minimizing overall height by spreading the vigor.
How about when they are 4-6’ tall
@@kerrydeshotels9691 Good question. I'd like to know, too. ~ Lisa
I did top mine when they got that tall because I didn’t know to do it earlier, so now, the suckers are too high for me to manage effectively, making my plant top heavy, and maybe not allowing as much time for fruit to develop as would have, if I had topped the plants earlier.
I'm 5 foot tall and I top them when I can't reach them easily anymore. I find if they are allowed to keep growing taller, those fruits get smaller and less desirable as the plant seem "spent" and out of energy by that point, and it's too late in the season to grown them big anyway.
This, it only works if you control the overall plant growth.
Awesome info. I decided this year to do very little pruning of suckers. My plants are out of control 😁 and I love it. Tons of fruit being produced.
Thank you for the great videos and the informed gardening advice. You rock!
I saw so many flowers on my suckers and didn't pinch them off for that reason. So happy for this video!
I made this mistake this year and I’ve got one plant the has twice as many tomatoes because I let it develop two main stems. Think you are spot on in your analysis of pruning. Thanks for the help. I plan to keep watching
You make so many great points. Last year I ran only one stem tomato plants, 2 feet apart in a 9 foot row beside my house. Only 4 plants; they grew over my 10 foot bamboo supports, so I ran them back down to six foot high when the frost hit in October. I pruned every leave/stem up to just below the fruits as the vines progressed. Best season every for me growing tomatoes. This was the first time I tried this idea and I was amazed of the results. As you did with your cherry tomatoes, I let 4 plants go without pruning and made all the sweetest canned salsa I could, 20 quarts. WOW.
Try clean light daily to control blight but must prune commercial style.
I'm trying this ,this year
Thanks for sharing ❤
I literally need you to give me a lesson. My dad grew but never taught me...I have no idea now, just started my first 2 and think I need more ...equipment.?
Thank you for clearing this up! I ran into the pruning suckers advice some years ago but when I went all out this year it didn't really make sense. Your other videos also helped clarify the differences between determinate and indeterminate tomatoes. Now I only prune bottom leaves and some center leaves for air flow and I almost never prune off suckers. My only issue is that I underestimated how big some of the fruits would get and am having to cobble together more supportive trellising. It's not a bad problem to have :)
Thank you for explaining this in detail! I am a fairly new gardener and this really helped answer many of my pruning questions.
I've watched a lot of 'Tomato Pruning' videos, this is one of the BEST.
Thanks!
Prunning tomatoes for Max yields means keeping as many main stems as you can support, KEY, while still having a decently organized plant structure. This is especially important when growing larger tomatoes since each tomato is a much larger energy sink
Yeah and that results in keeping 1 to 3 stems and removing everything else in my opinion..
@@SeamusHarper1234 I actually keep as many as I feel the plant and cage can support. For cherry maters, it is a lot more. For beefsteaks, usually 4-5 depending on stuff.
Yup, leave too many suckers and your plant will get out of control.
Also, your tomato plants look FANTASTIC! I'm so glad that after all these years of struggling you finally have such success with tomatoes. You give the rest of us hope!
It's 100% the shade cloth and straw bales. Getting the plants out of my native soil and under shade has made *all* the difference. If you live in the South, growing under shade cloth is mandatory as far as I'm concerned.
@@TheMillennialGardenerlol, I’m in Z5a, WI and have shade cloth over tomatoes. It’s Hot here. Don’t forget about microclimates. We just had 101*F and many high 90*F days. We had been in extreme drought also and the shade was necessary.
Fantastic video! I plan on following your advice regarding pruning my tomato plants. Greetings from Greenville, NC. You mentioned shade cloth, what is it and how do you use it. It gets extremely hot here from mid June to end of August. The heat stresses the hell out of my tomato plants. Thanks again for an awesome video.@@TheMillennialGardener
@@highwayroadrunner206 Haha, this just keeps getting more absurd. I thought it was annoying I had to put up a trellis, now I'm supposed to be erecting a fucking tent (that is also 100% prohibited in my neighborhood). Not happening. I live minutes from MG. If he's right I guess I can't grow tomatoes.
❤😂😂😂❤@@Maspets
I remove the suckers then root those suckers for more tomato plants ! Living in Ga it also helps with air circulation to remove the suckers.
Me too!
Do the suckers then have enough time to grow to a large enough plant to produce tomatoes? I’m new at this
@@its.me.charlotteI guess it depends on the length of your growing Season. Here I’m still harvesting tomatoes in November! I hope that helps! All the best for a bountiful crop!
Same
Ty I've been waiting for someone to say this! I never prune any of my tomatoes except to top them for more plants to start in the fall garden!
I did a test a few years ago, two of the same indeterminate plants, in the same raised bed. The one I left the suckers on had tons of flowers but dropped a great deal of them. I do leave two main stems (yet another experiment) and it works for me. I have enough tomatoes that they are too heavy for the plant and I'm constantly tying them in different areas.
Awesome! I’m doing a few experiments with my tomato pruning this season. Thank you for the valuable information. We live in NC and get a ton of rain then sun so I’ve been pruning where I’ve seen early blight. This year so far has been epic! Keep Growing bro 😅 with the cool videos. Much appreciated
Absolutely agree with you.
I've done both in the same year and the harvests from the plants that were pruned, with the suckers removed, were considerably smaller. I will no longer be doing that.
I moved into a new house last winter and I realized that I planted my tomatoes in a half sun area. Usually, I single stem but getting kind of nervous since 2 tom plants are barely fruiting so I'm letting the suckers with flowers grow hoping to increase the chances of fruit production. This video helped validate my thoughts.
Yes, I observed this in my garden. I only trimmed leaves at the bottom. We had great production. Also, not properly managing the mass tangle of plants is the biggest failure this year. Blight did hit hard and I think was worsened when I removed the affected leaves. Great harvest, but the life of the plants maybe limited by that management failure. Thank you for the education!
when i get blight or any other disease. I keep a couple sets of sheers and carry a bucket of bleach water and a rag and wipe them before each cut so it dont tranfer the disease to other plants or a different part of the plant. it works for me.
My garden is only 16x16. And I grow on trellises. I always single stem except for this year. Deer came and topped off my tomatoes. I have no main stems. The plants are huge now with all the suckers I let grow. It was a huge learning curve for me. I enjoyed this video alot. and it literally is practical this year. I didnt prune lol and learned alot
Thank you. I am relatively new to growing my own vegetables and I’m learning as I go along. I watched all the other videos on gardening and pruning tomatoes and even showed my daughter how everyone does it. She is 10. She takes care of the garden when I work away from home and it’s a way for us to bond. For a 2 week period I was away and she had camp. Our cherrie tomatoes exploded in the 2 weeks both of us couldn’t take care of them because we didn’t remove the suckers. Our yield is crazy! We can’t consume the amount of tomatoes 10 plants are producing. We are giving them to neighbors, family and friends. This is our first year and maybe we will follow this recipe where we prune and let the plants mature a bit and then just let them be. Your video confirmed our results!
I've ALWAYS wondered why its so commonly recommended to remove the suckers, and it never made sense to me.
Awesome, thanks for sharing this!!
Great advice, as usual. I've let my cherry toms go crazy like this and the fruit yield is excellent. Totally agree with the pruning to suit the support if needed, otherwise I too have left the suckers with my indeterminates.
I do single vine prune for all the reasons you mentioned I was told it would produce more fruit but after years of growing tomatoes I know it doesn't I grow 25 to 50 different varieties I even prune my cherry tomatoes and still get tons of tomatoes more than I can eat but I am growing 11 different varieties in about a 15 ft row 13 total plants and 27 large tomato varieties 15 are in pots the other 12 are in raised bed 15 ft long only using a 1 ft row of it with 2 more rows of various pepper varieties about 20 I believe don't remember how many I planted in that bed one other reason I single vine prune is I will get fruit to ripen sooner than not pruning lots of good information in this video👍
Wow so glad I saw this video !!!!! Thank you for keeping me from having a disappointing harvest.
Thankyou so much, you are the clearest and best talker I have ever heard on you tube. You always deliver great information in the most concise manner. Great work!
I grow indeterminates on vertical strings and fully remove all suckers, using 12” spacing. For denser spacing and for vertical strings (where the support is one string), removing suckers is necessary.
I feel I just hit a gold mine! You provide such GREAT information and it's so useful. I've always wondered about pinching off the suckers. I've been doing it the past few years and will STOP doing it, starting today. You do a GREAT job teaching. You're so easy to listen to. Beautiful garden you have!!!
I'm glad you're enjoying the content. Please note that with my beefsteak tomatoes, I still do and will continue to pinch off some suckers here and there. However, that's because they will get too unruly and I will run out of means to support them. If you can only support a certain number of main stems, you will need to pinch off suckers to control them. However, there is no biological reason to remove suckers, so if you can support the tomato plants, you don't have to touch them. Removing suckers won't make them fruit more. It will make them fruit less.
@@TheMillennialGardener got it! Thanks again 😊
You'll end up with smaller fruits if you let the suckers grow. If quantity is more important to you than quality, go ahead and let the suckers grow.
I think the "whole story" is to "manage" your plants as you've stated. One person indicated they prune until the base stem is strong, and then let-er-go from there unless unmanageable. I think conscious effort produces the best results.
@@TheGreenAcreWIyour statement is completely untrue. That is simply a myth. Not pruning suckers and thus growing a big plant does not compromise size or quality of the fruit.
Such a good video!! I was just pruning my tomatoes because that's what I've been told, not because of what I'm trying to accomplish. I feel like my pruning knowledge just doubled!! Thank you!!
Thank you this is so much clearer for me I always wondered why some videos had no stems and others did
I pruned my cherry tomatoes to two leaders. There are 18 tomatoes on them right now. I’m doing it because they are in a small space, and I like the amount of airflow they have. It’s easy for me to go in and check for bugs. Point taken about the reduced harvest though! Maybe next year I will experiment with letting the suckers do their thing. 😊
It's nice to know my negligence was beneficial last year 😆. Not gonna lie though I did a similar experiment with my eggplant last year, the ones I didn't prune were so much more productive and healthy looking. Smaller fruit but I was ok with that
So informative. I learned the no pruning rule years ago... but never got the explanation... This was thorough! Wow Thank you.
Great video! Last year, I went nuts removing suckers and was disappointed by the yields. Other people in my community garden had wild unmanaged tomatoes that were sprawling, inter-vining, breaking cages -- a hot mess, but they had loads of tomatoes.
But the vines I grew hydroponically inside my apartment HAD to be not only pruned vigorously but also topped early because they quickly outgrew the lights and sent weak spindly vines toward the windows.
Facts, leave it alone, just give it support and let her grow!
I feel that pruning for air flow is important for all tomatoes, not just indeterminates. I grow semi determinates in 22 inch diameter wire cages. I remove a lot of the internal sun leaves that are mostly shaded out anyway. I leave enough to provide photosynthesis and some shade for fruits, but also to allow much better air flow. I do not remove suckers or blossom trusses, only sun leaves. This method works well for me, so I can not agree that you should ONLY prune your indeterminate tomatoes.
I prune this way too. Shaded sun leaves must go, and all suckers must stay.
agreed.
i got a (edit: -Baby- ) Better Bush tomato plant this year and i have trimmed out so many leaves....and it is loaded.
i have to re-inforce the infrastructure this weekend.
it gets humid here, and as soon as a leaf starts getting nasty i get rid of it.
always have tomatoes to give away.
What is a sun leaf please?
@@bobbiduval7961 Its a side stem that only has leaves for photosynthesis. Not a sucker or flower cluster.
That is exactly what I do and harvested and canned 342 lbs of tomatoes last year from 20 plants. 😂
I learned so much from this video! I'm a statistic, I've been doing it wrong and wondering why when I knew nothing my tomato plants were better. Thank you!
Yes...this is the most important video we have seen on pruning...like your other videos...we learn more than we have ever known in our 70/80 years of life : )
Me watching this having pruned all my indeterminates to be 1 stem☹️
I did the same
It doesn't mean you can't be successful. You can let them sucker out for the rest of the season. Keep in mind if you have a short season, single-stemming can lead to faster ripening fruits since you'll have less tomatoes overall. If you have a short season, the more tomatoes you have, the longer they'll take to ripen.
Same here! Thanks for this info!
Me too! I'm in Burgaw NC, so I will be listening to you more often.
Great video! I'm so glad I found your channel. I do this too. I actually take off the lower branches and just keep them pruned up for air flow. I have a question... should my Brussels have sprouts yet? I have big, beautiful healthy plants with no sprouts! 👏😅 please help me 🤷♀️💙🌿🍅
I really appreciate you breaking it down like this. I had started to single stem prune mine and not really happy about how it was affecting my plants. I had already stopped so this helps me feel ok about my choice.
I’m trying this method this growing season for my determinate tomatoes, Love how you explain things and I trust you.
This explains so much. I always had a lot of plants but very small harvests. I'll try this technic. Hoping for a better season.
I've been a "pruning rebel" for a few years now. I prune branches as needed for airflow and leave the suckers. Huge harvests!! ❤❤❤
There should be no official way on how to prune and indeterminate tomato, because every gardener has different needs, growing season length, weather, etc. The idea that there is a "best way" is not true. Pruning is usually necessary to a degree, even if it's only to manage the plants, but it should be done carefully and with good reasoning.
Totally agree ❤
This vid is 9 mo old. Maybe you will see this 😊 please tell me if you can, with indeterminate what about stunting the height to no more than 4’? I have no way to support very tall ones. Any tips?
Yes an inverted cage on top of the cage
@@Montanafelines You can top the vine at whatever height suits you. There's no point in letting the vine grow out beyond what you can reach or what your supports can manage.
But I think if you are going to top a vine in the early or mid-season, you may want to allow a couple suckers/laterals further down to make up for cutting off your main vine's vertical potential.
So many people abuse their tomatoes. Please end tomatoes abuse!
I never used to remove my suckers on my Tomato plants, and I always had huge harvests of beautiful Tomatoes, then I read I was doing it all wrong, so I started removing the suckers from my Tomato plants and then I became confused because my yields were not even close to what they used to be! I had assumed that I was only lucky before when I didn't cut them! Unfortunately, I stopped gardening because I had lost faith that I could ever grow like I had before! Thank you so much for this video, it has encouraged me to grow tomatoes again!
Thank you for the education! I can't stop admiring your shade cloth. My cucumbers were horrifically bitter because we had such a hot, blazing-sun summer last year. I need to be better prepared this summer.
This was very helpful, thank you. I was confused as to why the suckers should be pruned when I noticed that they produce flowers, but was doing “as told” (I started pruning them a little later in the season, so that’s why I saw flowering). It was really helpful how you described the why of each pruning scenario and how each sucker becomes a main stem. This will be helpful for the rest of the season and moving forward. And congrats on your 500k milestone!👏
I always leave the suckers and cut back the large stem below it by about 2/3. Have a huge harvest every year.
Thank you! It's been a fun ride getting to here. I can't explain why removing suckers became so popular. I think certain trends just catch fire, and then they become perpetuated on their own energy without a lot of thought behind them. It turns into an "Everybody knows that..." kind of situation. Always question conventional wisdom, because it often isn't vetted!
@@afriendtoo6971 Help me understand, please, what you mean by 'cut back the large stem below it.' What large stem do you mean? Thxvm. ~ Lisa
@@LB-vl3qn --- The one directly below the sucker. It looks like the sucker is growing out from it. You will notice it usually gets darker and the leaves thicker.
@@afriendtoo6971 Got it, thanks 🙂
Great information! I have fallen into the 'remove all suckers' myth. I am going to change my ways. Thanks!!
Repentance and redemption. 😂
10 months later…new year for growing tomatoes for me. Refreshed my self watching this one again. You do a great job of educating us. TY. Barbara in Alabama
Right on MI. I love your videos where you buck the system. My dad did minimal pruning, that’s the way I always managed my plants. Granted spacing was about 3 feet apart and I constructed elaborate trellises. My dads brother, my uncle Jim was into growing giant tomatoes so he single stemmed and removed some clusters. He was in the local newspaper for growing a 3-1/2 pound Italian variety. My moms brother, Uncle Tom stuck to his rule of 3 main stems per plant. He easily grew the most tomatoes of anyone. Around 30 uniform tomatoes per plant. I basically incorporate all pruning methods depending on the variety and the result I want. Great video!
Very informative video!! I just have a small backyard garden and just recently converted it to a greenhouse but everything I know about gardening has come from my dad and he always told me to punch the suckers off. I am going to try and let them go like you said and see what happens 😊
Any update as to how it eventually turned out? Thanks
I am seriously eager to learn how to grow tomatoes. I have watched videos that encourage pruning n I applied to my farm and I got nothing. Now I'm going to apply this new knowledge. Thanks so much for sharing with me. I appreciate.
WOW! I Have Made That Mistake. Never Again. SOOOOOO Glad I Watch Your Videos. Thank You.
It depends. I started my tomatoes late and I’m in a northern climate. If I let all the suckers grow it’s just going to be a waste because the frost will kill the plant before those suckers have time to produce anything and it’ll just take more energy for greens. I’m certainly no expert but I believe in a situation like this it’s going to be best to prune pretty heavily to try to get the plants to produce fruit before the winter comes. I don’t need each plant to give me 100lbs of tomatoes, I just want to get anything at all from them. Plus mine are a bit crowded so a bunch of suckers is going to get everything bogged down with all the foliage.
Like everything else I don’t think there are any hard rules here. It’s all situation dependent
I take green tomatoes at the end of the year and can sliced dill green tomatoes. This is an excellent substitute for pickles. I found great recipes on the Internet.
I was about to go out and prune my tomatoes today hoping that I would get more tomatoes. This video showed up just in time. I guess I'll leave them alone.
As long as your growing season is long enough that the suckers have time to grow, flower and fruit. If you don't see frost until late October, you probably will be OK.
I was always told to remove suckers. Thanks educating me!
I have growing tomatoes for over 50 years and I agree with what you are saying in this vodeo.
i did a test with my cherry tomatoes and pruned two plants and let the other two grow to their tomato hearts desired…and the ones i didn’t prune surprisingly had much bigger cherry tomatoes and had way more tomatoes. it was awesome to watch the progression!
Thank you! I have been screaming this from my soap box for decades and I don't understand how pruning every sucker ever became a social media trend. I also made a video about this last year where I go into details about the science behind this. I hope more people try the proper methods of pruning and see how many more tomatoes they will get! Good video! ❤
Thank you! Thank you! My first time I took a chance planting cheery tomatoe plants in pots,thanks again for your teachings they are doing good
Great information. The way you explain the reasons to prune or not to prune makes so much sense. Thank you.
it's frustrating; I watch one video by a gardening "expert", who tells me to prune off the suckers, so I do it. Then I watch another gardening "expert" who tells me not to prune off the succkers. All I can do is experiment and find out which one is correct. I must admit that I think the first guy didn't mention the different kinds of plants, and I guess that makes a difference
I am keeping one plant with sucker, and that plant has more flowers. I think it's better to allow one or two sucker's to grow. We should take middle path.
You can't generalize all tomatoe genetics into one group. Did you listen to the whole videos? Semi determinate tomatoes, determinate tomatoes. Indeterminate tomatoes, semi Indeterminate tomatoes. LISTEN WITH YOU EARS @JEANSROSES7249. Your the type of person to interrupt the person you asked a question in the middle of getting ur answers with your own answers
Also depends how long your growing season is, leaving them on may produce more flowers but if they don’t mature into ripe fruits you’re better concentrating on the single main stem and harvesting all the fruit produced.
@@davea.2311 thank you; good point
Both methods have their benefits! Pruning them you can have more plants closer together, you'll get less tomatoes per plant but more plants in the same place. Indeterminate plants can also get SO bushy and are prone to disease. Pruning will help.
I subscribed because this video may save my garden from the misinformation I followed for the past 3 years!! I feel like someone who has been watching CNN or CNBC!!! I've been chopping off suckers and wondering why my tomatoes were producing NOTHING compared to previous years and blaming the weather!! THANK YOU!!! I will watch 10x more than I have before!!
Nature knows best. We are here to support her. Much love and good luck. ☮
so interesting to hear this. I have slowly changed from a Square Foot gardner to more of a Ruth Stout style gardener. I now let many natural plants like lambs quarter, chick weed and even poke co-exist in my garden. I obsrved that not pinching off the suckers did just fine and had great yields. I do have to keep things in check but when spring rolls around I have lots of things that I can eat that come up naturally without me planting. I even get some volunteer tomatoes every year. I guess I should call my gardening style free range gardening. I felt this technique on not pruning the suckers was successful but was curious why I did not hear other gardeners say as much. Thank you for your insightful comments and observations. I also share your weather as I am in the Atlanta area of Georgia.
My first time growing tomatoes in a bout 20 years. I made mistake after mistake and still have a plentiful harvest. Been giving bunches away . Only five plants. Next year I hope to cut down on the blunders . Your videos are informative . Good job.
I’m removing some suckers. I never knew until this year that removing the suckers would help keep them from becoming unmanageable. I am keeping 3-4 stems and the plants look so much better. There are only two of us so we don’t need hundreds of tomatoes. Thank you for your videos. ❤
Yeah I love cherry tomatoes, but I would get tired of harvesting hundreds of them 😂
I am so with you! I like tomatoes but I need a managable plant too!
I am tired of harvesting now and it's only mid August! My cherry plant produced 500 ripe fruits before I stopped counting. Now I harvest and give them all to the local Food Bank. I was giving them to my neighbors but they have been avoiding me :)
Being somewhat lazy, I only prune suckers that I notice. My plants are massive and I harvested more this year than ever before. I took 12 Big Beef and Ultra Girl weighing 8lb 12oz in one picking and i have taken at least 20 from each plant so far. Compared with my neighbors who prune, my harvest is many times larger.@@jessicawright4102
Ja but freeze the hundreds down, great for soup wintertime 😊
I agree. I don't even take home tomatoes for the most part. They are more like garden snacks. Vine to mouth.
Thanks for the clearity on this issue.
Thank you! I learned a lot and you reduced my stress level exponentially because the REASON one prunes determines HOW and HOW MUCH to prune. Again, thank you.😊
Good, no-nonsense information and a straightforward delivery. Thank you!
I've been abusing my tomato plants for years. I'm so ashamed.😔
I did very strict single-stemming for two years and got poor yields compared to when I allowed my plants to bush out. It was also way more work. I’m going to follow your advice this year and let my cherries sprawl in a convenient corner of the garden, and grow more determinate and dwarf-types for big harvests in my short season! With two kids I also just don’t have time anymore to be out there pruning and tying every day!
What you said at the end about a light bulb moment going off is exactly what happened to me. Great video. I was doing a lot of things wrong.
I only grow indeterminate varieties and realized a few years back that pruning suckers was pruning off the tomatoes, so I started letting them grow enough to produce flowers and THEN prune the tip, IF I don't want the stem to continue. You're right, very few videos explain this! Thank you sir!
Interesting! I've been removing suckers until my plants got SO big(I used to have a big garden, had to move, so now I only have a couple in containers that I can baby-sit almost daily). Sounds good, though! Let the suckers grow until they produce(flowers or toms), then snip the tops?
@@turtleman5111 That's how I do it! And then when my main stem(s) start to get too tall, I'll leave suckers from the bottom of the plant and let them become the main stem and trim back the original once it's been full harvested. Happy growing!
Do you have a discussion on topping off a tomato when it gets too tall?
Cut to the height you like. Mine are 6 feet in the greenhouse. 7 or 8 trusses on each.
Your videos are very thorough, leaving no guessing or confusion.
Thank you! I'm glad you're enjoying them.
I 100% agree I tested removing sucker's last year and very few tomatoes
I recently subscribed and I'm happier than a pig in shit. The simple scientific breakdowns in each video are perfect and have me more involved in my garden that my wife normally maintains. I even started a drip irrigation tomato garden at work. My co-workers laugh when they see me using my old electric toothbrush to pollinate the flowers but they're seeing the results.
I'm glad you're enjoying the channel! I'm an engineer, so my brain works kind of differently. Everything to me is a progression, like I'm writing a report in my mind 😅
@testticklehead Scientific? I don't see any sources on these videos.