How To Prune Cherry Tomato Plants - The Plant Guide

How To Prune Cherry Tomato Plants

Published by Maggie on July 1, 2017

Numerous cultivars of tomato offer gardeners a range of possible plant sizes and growth habits; varying levels of resistance to certain diseases that potentially impact tomatoes; and fruits of different flavors, colors and sizes, including the small, bite-sized cherry tomato. Cherry tomato plants, which range from dwarf cultivars to plants that can grow over 6 feet tall, often benefit from pruning to control plant size and shape. Regular pruning or pinching can also improve the quality of fruit that the plant produces.

How to prune cherry tomato plants

1. Pinch off any leaves from the lower portion of the young tomato plant’s stem at the time of transplant so that you remove all leaves from the area of the stem that you’ll bury. Press the base of the petiole, or leaf stem (where the leaf attaches to the main stem), between your thumb and the fingernail of your index finger to cleanly remove the leaf.

2. Pinch shoots back selectively so that the tomato plant has two or three main stems if supported by a stake or trellis and up to four or five if the plant is surrounded by a supportive cage. Retain the main stem, and select other strong, healthy shoots emerging from near the base of the plant to keep. If the cherry tomato plant has already developed more large stems than you would like, the unwanted stem or stems may be too thick for easy pinching and may require cutting with a pruning shears or knife.

3. Pinch new shoots that appear in leaf axils, where the leaf stem meets the main stem, back to just above the the second leaf once two leaves develop on the new shoot.

4. Monitor the cherry tomato plant regularly for symptoms of disease or pest activity such as spots or fuzzy growth on leaves, leaves that have squiggly lines on them or pests visibly feeding on the plant, and pinch or cut off the affected portions of the plant.

5. Dispose of any diseased or infested portions that you remove from the plant well away from the cherry tomato and other garden crops and ornamentals.

Growing cherry tomato plants in a cage, rather than training them to a stake or trellis for support, takes up more space but allows you to retain up to four or five main shoots and results in a greater yield.

Source: homeguides.sfgate.com

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2 Comments

Keen Green · July 3, 2017 at 6:27 pm

Your website is nearly impossible to read because of the small, thin, pale grey writing. Why don’t you make it more legible? Large, thick and black please.

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There appears to be useful information hidden on this site, but the ‘share’ graphics on the left side of the page obscure so much of the info I finally gave up and will get my info someplace I don’t have to fight for it. Sorry – maybe I’ll try this site again someday if you can fix this.

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