On today’s 2 minute garden tip, I share one thing every gardener should do when pruning tomatoes. Whether you’re growing indeterminate tomatoes, determinate tomatoes or dwarf tomatoes, this tomato pruning rule should be followed. Prune all of your tomato plants like this right now to minimize the chance of tomato diseases in your tomato garden.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
0:00 Pruning Tomato Plants
1:38 Pruning Determinate Tomatoes
2:11 Sanitizing Pruning Shears
2:23 Pruning Dwarf Tomatoes
3:01 Pruning Indeterminate Tomatoes
3:53 Disposing Of Diseased Leaves
4:18 When To Prune Tomato Plants
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©2 Minute Garden Tips
#gardening #garden #gardeningtips #tomatoplant #tomatoplants
what’s growing on gardeners on today’s 2-minute Garden tip I’m going to share a simple pruning cut that most of us should be making to all of our tomato plants right now pruning tomato plants has become somewhat controversial because how you prune them will depend highly on the type of tomato that you’re growing as well as the infrastructure that you’re growing the Tomato up against for example dwarf and determinate style Tomatoes should almost never be pruned because they only grow to be about 30 in to 48 in tall depending on the variety and they grow like a bush and they form suckers along the main stem so you never want to remove any of those suckers because if you do the tomatoes won’t produce any flowers indeterminate tomatoes like all the plants you see right here grow as Vines and they will grow indefinitely until they are killed by something like frost pests or disease and how you prune them will depend on many factors like are you growing them on a steak on a string trellis like this on a cattle panel trellis how far apart did you space them are they a cherry tomato type are they a beef steak type how you prune your indeterminant tomato plants is up to you and will vary based on your infrastructure everybody has a different opinion on the best way to do this but one thing is always true no matter what type of tomato you are growing you always want to remove the leaf branches below the first flower cluster that’s because these Leaf branches get very low to the ground and often touch the ground so every single time you irrigate or it rains and it splashes soil from the ground onto the undersides of the leaves that helps speed up the colonization of bacterial and fungal diseases now for a determinant tomato plant like you see right here these lower Leaf nodes are the only thing that is safe to remove on the plant and as you can see this red snapper variety already has signs of early blight so it is very important that we remove the lowest Leaf nodes that are touching the ground that way they will be out of the Splash Zone of the plant and that’s really all we have to do we just want to get rid of those that are touching the ground that way when it rains it will no longer splash the soil onto the undersides of the leaves now it’s good practice to rub down our shears with a little bit of rubbing alcohol in between each and every plant so we don’t spread those diseases I recommend you do this just to sanitize them from plant to plant now we’re going to do the same thing to our dwarf tomato project Tomatoes This is a dwarf variety called Adelaide Festival and just like determinate varieties we never want to remove the suckers that come off the main stem at a 45 degree angle like you see right here never remove them only remove the lower Leaf nodes that come off the stem at a 90° angle if we remove the suckers on these little tiny dwarf and determinate plants that’s where the flowers come from and since they top out at only around 3 ft tall or so you won’t get any flowers if you remove all those suckers we only need to clean up the bottom to get get everything out of the Splash Zone whether or not to remove suckers on indeterminate tomatoes is always up for debate in the gardening Community me personally for my beef steak tomatoes I like to allow a few suckers at the bottom to form main stems I like to have about three main stems on a beef steak tomato and then I’ll remove a lot of the suckers above that for cherry tomatoes I remove very few suckers however one thing that is not up for debate is that the diseased lower leaves on this pink princess cherry tomato have got to go so I really need to cut these off right here because they are already showing signs of disease and we’re going to do that for all of our indeterminant tomato plants so they don’t have any of these Leaf nodes that are lower down on the plant and in that dangerous Splash Zone we are not going to remove any suckers at this time then we are going to pick up all of the tomato leaves that we just pruned off and we are going to either trash them or burn them I do not recommend you compost tomato leaves especially if they show even the slightest hint of disease you do not want those diseases growing in your compost The Only Exception is if you are a hot composter and you are positive that your compost gets so warm that it will kill all of the pathogens if your plants are at least 18 in tall and they’ve been transplanted out into your garden for at least 2 weeks so they’ve had time to become well rooted now is probably a pretty good time to do this and that’s today’s two minut tip if you’re new to the Channel please consider subscribing and hitting the Bell to receive new video notifications and check out our Amazon storefront and spread shop in the video description for a list of the gardening products I use and awesome custom designed apparel and other gear your support is greatly appreciated
45 Comments
If you enjoyed this video, please "Like" it and share it to help increase its reach! Thanks for watching 😀TIMESTAMPS here:
0:00 Pruning Tomato Plants
1:38 Pruning Determinate Tomatoes
2:11 Sanitizing Pruning Shears
2:23 Pruning Dwarf Tomatoes
3:01 Pruning Indeterminate Tomatoes
3:53 Disposing Of Diseased Leaves
4:18 When To Prune Tomato Plants
Cool man thanks for the information . Hi Dale !!
I’m just now setting out our tomato plants this coming week, so thus video is very timely. Thank you.
Thk u for your video so I can understand how to prune tomato, Greeting from Indonesia
Great tips
Thank you!!!!
Dang…early blight already?!
What size grow bags for your tomatoes ? Hi Dale!!
Thank you for the great gardening tips! 😊👍👍
Just the video I needed but I have a problem. My leaves are turning brown and dying off. Is this a sign of disease or supplement deficiency? Please help.
I trim low branches on ALL my plants (tomatoes, peppers, squash, cucs, etc). It greatly reduces disease.
Can I plant tomatoes in a 5 gallon bag?
I know you know your mulches, but have you tried alfalfa hay? A feed sized bale (tractor supply) usually covers about 200 sq ft of my beds. It breaks down over the season and provides some great organic material.
Excellent video, new subscriber. Going to get some Heirloom Tomatoes with my wife, living in NC Florida, zone 9 now for 5 years. Originally from Miami, it’s get Cold up here and Hot and Humid, so I’m learning what grows, Thanks. If. You see this, what is best way to grow from package Asparagus Ferns seeds. Thanks
Thank you!
I accidentally over pruned the sun leaves and it’s drying up now 🙁 what can I do to stop it ?
I started removing half of each leave branch all over the stem. So leave from plants do not touch to each other. Surprisingly plants like that, cut is healing and leaves continue to grow🙂
Very informative, from Ireland with thanks.
Should suckers be removed on "Paste" tomatoes? Wondering because I am growing cherry, paste, and slicer tomatoes, and all are getting bushy. Thank you.
Thanks for educating us on disposing the leaves. Great video. Short and to the point 👉
I trimmed off every leaf except a few of the top 3rd of the plant, tomatoes ripening really well
Yay I already do exactly as you are doing! My daddy taught me this year's ago. ❤ Ty
Is this also another reason why tomatoes don't turn red right away too?
Rodriguez Amy Lee Michael Harris Nancy
Im just confused whether to prune suckers or not 😢
Need a full process of tomatoes planting tiil fruits
How do you know if your tomatoes are determinate or indeterminate???
Excellent cleaning your cutting edge
I never knew Frankie Edgar was such a tomato farmer!
Are the bricks in your beds for bugs?
I am a new gardener and this is my first year and I have learned so much from both of your channels! Thank you! I also ordered the Kajari melon today from your videos. I have a small space to grow so using plants in containers is great! Thank you! 🥰
How do we tell if a plant is determinate or indeterminate?
Don’t wipe alcohol off. 70% alcohol is designed to to clean by natural drying. If it doesn’t dry on its own, it’s not properly clean. And must use 70%, 50 and 90% don’t disinfect as the drying time is not right
You say tomato i say tomoto
I have a better boy indeterminate tomato plant. I accidentally let a tomato sucker grow out. Its really big and has flowers on it. But I don't want it there. Should I cut if off and plant it so I get another plant?
cool, I live in the city of Adelaide in Australia & I never knew there was a tomato plant named Adelaide Festival
I actually grow tomatoes indoors & I'd like a dwarf variant too, so I honestly am going to have a look for some seeds some day to give it a go
At the moment I've got a just 1 full size tomato plant growing inside, which I have kept shorter than it would be & I got some "tiny tim" cherry tomatoes & my gosh, these are incredible.. the amount of fruiting on them & the small size of the plant is literally insane to me
How do you know if you have a determinate plant? I’ve been planting garden for years now but I’m new to doing it the right way! But I’m so new to pruning and truly taking care of them, that it’s like my first time having a garden.
Why is it that people giving advice always think we know all the technical lingo.
I am watching from Kashmir India
U r giving informative videos.
Stay blessed
Everything i read says to cut suckers.
So putting down straw will do away with having to cut any branches away. Got it.
Is your tomato plants are hybrid.
why do you have a white tarp around your containered indeterminate tomatoes?
Ive already quadrupled the size of my tomatoe's fruit this year growing them similar to growing cannabis plants
Answered my exact question