How To Prune Tomato Plants For Maximum Yield & Bigger Tomatoes - Organic Vegetable Garden in Arizona

How To Prune Tomato Plants For Maximum Yield & Bigger Tomatoes - Organic Vegetable Garden in Arizona
In this video, I will show you how I prune my tomato plants and the three major reasons why I prune them.
But first, please note that if you are growing a determinate tomato variety, you should not prune it; just pinch back only suckers that grow below the first flower cluster, or you will reduce the yield from your tomato plant.

I usually try to prune my tomato plants as often as possible because the sooner I catch the new unneeded growth, the easier is to prune it and the lesser the risk of damaging my tomato plants. Young suckers, I normally just pinch off with my fingernails. If the sucker is a week old, I would use scissors, and if it's been on my tomato plant for a while, I would use garden clippers. I always make sure to wash my cutting tools before pruning my tomato plants, because I don't want to possibly spread a disease from another plant. I pinch off or cut the suckers as close as possible to the stem of the tomato plants without damaging the stem.

I left one sucker on each tomato plant to grow two stems but you can also prune them to a single stem.

The number one reason I prune my tomato plants is to assure maximum yield and bigger tomatoes. The less side growth my tomato plants have, the more energy and sources they can focus on growing more and bigger tomatoes. And of course, the tomatoes are going to be as big as the variety allows, and I want to reach that maximum size. And as my parents always said, you want to grow tomatoes, not bushes :)

The second reason why I prune my tomato plants is because I want to allow airflow and sunlight in between the plants to prevent decease and to allow sunlight to reach the tomato plants and help the tomatoes grow and ripen. However, I do leave enough leaves to provide shade to the soil and keep it cool because in Arizona in the summer the sun is very strong.

And the third reason I prune my tomato plants is because here in Arizona we do have many different snakes some of which are very deadly along with scorpions and spiders. So, the reason I prune the bottom leaves of my tomato plants is so I can have a clear view of what is underneath them before I reach there.

For a picture perfect garden make sure to regularly prune your tomato plants.

I hope you find this video helpful and if you have any questions about how to prune your tomato plants for maximum yield and bigger tomatoes here in Arizona, please post them in the comment section and I will answer them.

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*Here is the video playlist about my raised bed garden I built with wood where I planted my tomato and pepper plants that I also started from seeds:
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*Here is a video on how I built strong trellis for my tomato plants for the windy Arizona weather:
https://youtu.be/IPTPuFXUW-g

*If you are interested to see the benefits of Liquid Alaska Organic Fish fertilizer, check out this playlist:
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*Here is a video on when and how to water tomato seedlings:
https://youtu.be/tEJnJ-eIAEw

*Here is the video on when and how to fertilize your tomato seedlings:
https://youtu.be/FW7wrCuzLco

*Here is the video on transplanting tomato seedlings into cups from earlier this year:
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