Tips for Pruning Tomatoes

Did you know you can trim tomatoes? It’s easy with a few of these tips, and it can help train your plant for best fruit production and decoration. We did this as a part of our larger series on Straw Bale Gardening at LiveDan330.com and on Youtube. I’ll link to these articles for more on these topics as well.

Resources

Joel Karsten is the best selling author and TED talk speaker on the topic of straw bale gardens. He turns out to be my neighbor and has taught me pretty much everything I know about straw bale gardens. Check out his book over at Amazon to get a complete guide on straw bale gardens. Otherwise, this series covers most of what we do on the gardens over at YouTube

Straw Bale Gardens by Joel Karsten (affiliate link) – https://amzn.to/2EvvtW2

Reasons to Trim Tomatoes

Shaping

One reason I trim tomatoes is so that I can train them to grow on my tomato tunnel. I use a variety of indeterminant plants that will continue to grow all summer long. By training them to grow just one or two primary shoots, I can plant them in a row and have them grow up a trellis shaped like a tunnel. The resulting effect is to have a literal tunnel of tomatoes. As they mature, the fruit hangs down from the ceiling. It’s a really neat feature for the garden!

Better Fruit Production

The other reason and probably more popular purpose of trimming a tomato plant is to increase yields. By trimming bushy limbs that are just foliage, you can force the plant to spend its energy and nutrients from the roots on the branches that are producing fruit.

Video demonstrating how to trim a tomato plant

Our Youtube series on straw bale gardening

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