The tomatoes in my garden are growing nicely. With nice growth comes the chore of pruning. I wrote a Knol that details how to prune tomatoes. Below is a bit of the article. Here is the link.
The Three Finger Method to Pruning Tomatoes
Why Prune Tomatoes?
You don't have too but I recommend you do. You will get tomatoes if you just let them sprawl across the ground. That is what they are designed to do. If you let your tomatoes sprawl, they will be more susceptible to disease and mildews. You will also need more garden space for a sprawling tomato and probably won't get any more tomatoes then a well pruned and tended tomato.
You prune a tomato plant to greatly reduce the risk of disease and mildews such as blights and powdery mildew. A pruned plant creates a gap between the soil and leaves. It is harder for spores to splash to the leaves and take hold. A pruned tomato plant has less leaves which allows air to circulate all through the plant. This circulation quickly drys leaves. Dry leaves are a good strategy in reducing the spread of disease and mildews.
You prune a tomato plant because you will still get a large harvest of tomatoes without sacrificing space in your garden. A tomato that grows up a stake and has its growth managed, allows you to plant more plants. In my book of a gardening the more space the better. You prune to have healthier tomatoes and more garden space.
Hi. Thanks for all the information you provide. I read your section on raised beds and was glad to find your "recipe" for the soil I should put into them. I have some beautiful redwood waiting for my husband to build the beds tonight. I am going with 4 x 8 as you mentioned, stacking three boards on top of each other to end up with beds that are about 18" in height. Because of this height, do you think it will be necessary for my husband to dig out the grass first or do you think we can just go ahead and pour in the soil and skip that step?
ReplyDeleteOh the post above was me. I just figured out how to change my author name to something besides RustedPolitics.
ReplyDeleteAh your lucky. Redwood will be beautiful. I try not to remove the grass when possible. With 6 inch beds I usually do. But with 18 inches youre in good shape.
I do recommend spraying the grass with your standard round]-up salt base killer. I would turn the grass once. Your going through all that effort to make something impressive. Turning it will loosen the soil to an even greater depth. And give your plants that much more growing room.