Stop growing tomatoes if you aren’t doing this 🍅 Pruning will give you 5x more! #tomato #garden

The Summer Garden Challenge starts Monday! Are you coming??

When I first started gardening, I had NO CLUE about pruning. I was always terrified to cut on my plants because I assumed it would KILL them.

After a few years, I realized pruning was the SECRET to garden success in so many ways.

This coming week, you'll learn so many more of my garden tips and tricks in the Summer Garden Challenge.

[GrowCookPreserveWithKellyDawn]

Don’t forget the plant needs enough leaves for photosynthesis!

[bobbyallen]

I have been growing 3 tomato plants a year in baskets about 2 feet apart from one another without pruning them and I get tons of tomatoes

[johnbrownlee]

I've done this before but my garden is outside without the protection of a greenhouse, and I live in georgia. If you cut off all of the leaves there is no protection from the Sun for the fruit and they all get scalded so you end up getting way less tomatoes overall

[nicolek.]

Tried this last year and most of my tomatoes got sun scald. I’m sure it works great in a green house though

[peetymcfly]

according to botany leaves are essential. ill cut only the dead ones. i let mine get bushy. and i get tons of fruits.

[msdee]

I’m in Arkansas zone 8b. I plant outside from seeds- cherry & beefsteak, and Roma. I don’t prune my tomato plants and have so much fruit. The severe pruning was not necessary. I have videos on my channel that shows my tomatoes.

[pawwalton]

Make sure that you are in a green house, because if you are growing outside, in say Florida, the birds, squirrels and sun are going to have a field day on your tomatoes.

[minh]

Plants need leaves for photosynthesis. Just saying.😂

[Vivienwestphal]

Leaves provide photosynthesis for plants. Meaning - they make food for your tomatoes. You wouldn't remove branches off an apple tree to make it give better fruits. It doesn't make sense for tomatoes either.

[GreenKonzult]

You are very wrong ... this is over pruning

[BlacknessWirefly]

I've heard of this aggressive pruning but they only pruned below the fruit and as they picked each layer they'd prune up to the next stem of fruit. So the were always leaves above the fruit but never below.

[mrspatriot]

One year I did a lot of pruning. Got an okay amount of tomatoes. THIS year I decided I couldn’t prune because of a busy schedule. I have TONS AND TONS of tomatoes growing! I prune the bottoms only removing only what touches the soil. I will never prune heavy again. Those poor tomatoes plants.

[nancymcshane]

Don’t forget the suckers can be rooted to make more tomato plants! After I see which plants are producing best, I clone them and get another round of fruit!

[JohnJohn-wrjo]

Been growing tomatoes in the home garden for over 60 years. I trellis all of my tomatoes and I bought into the heavy pruning process about twenty years ago. Over time Ive scaled it back about 80% and am much happier with the overall results. Market growers want perfect looking tomatoes that are uniform in size and ripeness when picked. One advantage of heavy pruning is the plant tends to produce less fruit but larger market size tomatoes. As I home grower who preserves 95% of my crop for future use I aim for the maximum yield from each plant. Heavy pruning reduces the overall yield by weight about 50% in my comparisons depending on the variety. A lot of other factors involved and I still heavy prune a few varieties because of the disease factor sometimes dictates it.
Be careful what u throw in your compost regarding tomato plants. Ive seen too many gardeners at the end of the season add diseased plants to their compost piles that spread it everywhere the following season.

[believeinshadows]

It’s so fucking funny how you’ll see 70 million videos of people talking about how they are tomato expert. they get the best harvest they say. all of them have a different method. the best part is every single method and it was pretty much the same amount of tomatoes. Tomatoes are not hard. They’re probably the easiest starter plant if you want to start gardening. The entirety of their stems will produce roots. You don’t need to do fancy trimming and all this other bullshit. Just stick them in some decent soil and make sure they stay watered and give them something to climb so they don’t lay all over the ground. It’s that easy

[pdxmusl]

I have friends who do this. I get way way more tomatoes, not doing it. And they taste the same. Same size. The pruning method is way too aggressive imo. You should prune, yes. But you're not getting any food.

[susangoins]

Works for cucumbers also. By pruning some leaves (must have at least 6 leaves before removing one). I am overwhelmed by the flowers!!! I have never in my life seen so many babies.
3 years ago I watched how to grow tomatoes not leaves and I had beds of giant heriloom tomatoes. Some plants had 10-12 giants. So tickled over this and now I am using same technique on cucumbers but leaving more leaves.
This year is looking good!!!

[kellynull]

Been doing this for 9 years and it definitely produces more. Helps to manual pollinate while pruning.

[nphilly]

I do this already but was gonna try what you said to do in another video which was to stop pruning sucker's and let them go wild???

[BruceVanatta]

I only trim the leaves that come in contact with the ground or what will in a few days. I also trim the late starting suckers that are below the bottom 6 inches of the main branches. 20 to 25 lbs per plant is average.