How do you prune your tomatoes?

How do you prune your tomatoes?


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Artichoke Lover

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I want to know how you prune you tomato plants and why. To prevent disease? To get an earlier crop? To keep them from taking over the whole garden? Does it affect your productivity? Do you grow determinate or indeterminate? (I am taking suggestions for pruning styles to add to the poll)
 

flowerbug

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Are you growing determinate or indeterminate tomatoes?

almost always indeterminate beefsteak varieties for most of our crop. Mom is very set in her ways and doesn't like when we wander too far astray from the straight and narrow. since we usually have good results that suit our tastes i'm not really one to argue that much, but i would like to try some other ones just for grins here or there.
 

Zeedman

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I grow a few determinate paste tomatoes, primarily because of their short DTM. Those I never prune.

But the majority of my tomatoes are indeterminate, because I have rodent problems & the longer vines keep the tomatoes (mostly) out of reach. I seldom prune those either, unless they become unruly... but I occasionally prune all but the strongest 3-4 stems early in the season. In a wet year, at the first sign of disease, I may prune heavily to increase air flow, especially at the base of the plants.
 

Artichoke Lover

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almost always indeterminate beefsteak varieties for most of our crop. Mom is very set in her ways and doesn't like when we wander too far astray from the straight and narrow. since we usually have good results that suit our tastes i'm not really one to argue that much, but i would like to try some other ones just for grins here or there.
My mom was rather wary of the Black Cherry Tomatoes I grew this year lol. I did finally get her try one and she did like them. I think I got her interested though since she asked me if I can order some seeds for Black Krim this year:lol:
 

valley ranch

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Hi ~ I clone from the chosen plants, early sprouted plants, pulling the, to be cloned bodies at the Ys setting these in water to root ~ then as the plants grow in soil I nip them after the third true leaves and bring up two stalks ~ after the plants reach the desired size ~ the tops are clipped down if over reaching ~ if the plants are outside the basket,, the branching vines are taken back into the basket or removed in some cases ~ preferring to encourage the plant to spend less strength on becoming a sprawling vine and more on producing fruit, specially in the green house~ some plants, not in rows or green house are allowed to go crazy and cover a fence ```
 

thejenx

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I grow mostly indeterminate tomatoes and I grow them in a unheated greenhouse. I prune almost weekly after they reach 3ft, I start with the lowest leaf branches to avoid disease from getting wet. I take away all suckers and remove leafs from the bottom up, above tomatoes that start ripening so more light falls on them. Determinate tomatoes get no pruning unless I forget they are determinate. 😉
 

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