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Hi I'm Tricia a California organic gardener One of my main reasons for
gardening is to have home grown tomatoes
Today we're gonna talk about tomato pruning
and some of the common problems with tomatoes and what to do about them
The only type of tomato you should consider pruning are indeterminate
tomatoes
and you don't have to prune all your tomatoes at all
but for those of us in short seasons there are advantages
pruning will help maximize fruit size and quality and if you're not growing in cages
it will help prevent the tomatoes from sprawling all over the ground
for a fully pruned tomato vine
choose the two strongest and healthiest growing tips and cut the rest
and remember
that pruning tomatoes will limit the amount of fruit that you get
this is one of two big healthy growing tips this is just a branch
Now I'm going to prune off
the lower smaller growing tips
this is the small growing tip that I'm going to prune
make sure that you don't snip until there's two full leaves
and don't prune
when the plant is wet
And this is an immature growing tip not ready to snip yet
i'm also gonna prune some of these bottom branches that are touching the
ground unhealthy branches and branches growing in a downward direction this will
really improve air circulation around the base of the plants
be careful not to prune too much
you want to have a nice canopy of leaves over the fruit to prevent a common
problem called sun scaled
a sun scalded fruit has a large light colored
leathery patch
and that means it didn't have enough cover from the leaves and it got sunburned
another common problem is fruit cracking
the fruit will crack when it has either uneven watering are too much sun or
both
mulches and drip irrigation help maintain even watering
sometimes fruit will ripen unevenly and this is called blotchy ripening or grey
wall
It's thought to be caused by multiple factors like too much nineteen and not enough
phosphorus and boron
and extreme temperatures
What you can do to avoid it is use a balanced fertilizer
you may see some dark spots on the leaves stems or fruit about a
centimeter in diameter this could be early blight
to control blight
avoid overhead watering spray a copper fungicide like Liquicop every seven to
ten days as soon as the disease appears
For some other common tomato problems it may be too late this year to
do anything about them
if you have a dark leathery patch on the bottom of your tomato that grows
larger from the blossom end
you could have blossom end rot which is caused by a calcium deficiency and
aggravated by uneven watering
T avoid blossom end rot in the future you might consider adding a calcium based
amendment next year
So for this and other tips about how to get your tomatoes off to a great
start check out our "Planting Tomatoes" video
Another problem is wilting caused by soil-borne fungi like
Fusarium and Verticillium
Unfortunately all you can do is destroy all infected plant matter
including the roots after harvest
and don't plant tomatoes peppers eggplants or potatoes in that spot
for four to six years
plant resistant varieties like Siletz or Roma
and you can apply Actinovate fungicide
which will help prevent some wilts from getting a foothold
Here's to a healthy harvest of tomatoes from your backyard and grow organic for life