Pruning tomato plants

You may have had the neighbor bragging about having 10 ft. tall tomato plants and you thought ....yeah right. Well, in their native region they can grow to 25 ft..........so tis possible! However, in Minnesota we want fruit to pick! This time of year you should be tip pruning your indeterminate tomato plants. Why?

• tip pruning encourages the plant to develop and ripen the fruit already on the plant
• eliminate excessive foliage growth (energy waste)
• fruit produced later than Aug 15th may not have time to develop to picking stage

How to do it? Just pinch out the growing tips on the ends of the plant, be it on the tops or sides.
Same principles apply this time of year to melon, squash and pumpkins.

A trick for determinate tomato plants to encourage ripening later in August, is called 'root pruning.' Take a shovel and make a 1/2 circle around your tomato plants about 8-12" out from the main stem. Drive the shovel in the ground, cutting the roots.This also makes the plant think it's dying (but not really killing it) and will hurry to ripen the remaining fruits. Plants are smart but we can be smarter, it's just learning the right tricks and then putting them into action!

Reminder the difference in 'determinate' and 'indeterminate' plants. When you purchase your plants it should say on the tag/sign what kind it is, usually abbreviated as IND or DET.
DETERMINATE: think 'determind.' The plant gets to a determined size and stops growing, often ripening lots of it's fruit at the same time. Sometimes referred to as 'bush' varieties. Best for small gardens.
INDETERMINATE: As long as the growing/weather conditions are favorable the plants continues to grow larger.