To prune or not to prune?

[b54red]

I have had one tomato fruit get sun scalded this year so out of approximately 500 fruits picked this year with an average weight of around 12 to 14 ounces that isn't too bad. The sunlight here is very hot with long days. I wish I could say the same for my bell peppers which don't get pruned and have had massive sun scald problems this year due to the intense sunlight. At least one third of the fruits on my bell peppers have been scalded to one degree or another so yesterday I put up shade for my bell peppers for the first time in a long time. I hope it helps.

I'm sure I will have many more fruits get sun scald as the summer progresses and gray mold hits some of my plants. When it hits the plants will usually lose all the leaves affected after I spray with the dilute bleach spray to stop the GM. It is kind of a catch-22 situation with GM. If I leave it alone and don't stop it early I lose the whole plant before too long or I take care of the problem and get some scalded tomatoes.

The Missouri pruning will take care of most shade issues that need to be addressed on the more open type plants.

Bill

[ContainerTed]

After last night's storm and high winds, today, this morning, I had to do some trimming on the tomato plants. I'm guessing the winds hit 60+ mph because it blew patio chairs (a stack of four) across the yard and up against the fence. I had a bushel basket of broken stems and such in the garden.

I don't think this is pruning, is it??

[MrBig46]

Czech gardening union has 156,000 members. There are many other gardeners who are not its members (such as myself). More than ninety percent of them are grown tomatoes. All prune indeterminante tomatoes. Nobody grown in cages.
Vladimír

[loulac]

Originally Posted by ContainerTed

After last night's storm and high winds, today, this morning, I had to do some trimming on the tomato plants... I don't think this is pruning, is it??

No it's not, it's surgery !

[BigVanVader]

This thread reminds me of the old Chinese proverb "There is more than one way to skin a cat"

[Shapshftr]

b54red and Ted, Sorry to hear about your losses. Maybe different varieties of tomatoes are more susceptible to sunscald than others. We were supposed to get walloped by the storms last night too. They were calling for 80 mph winds here. We didn't get anything. Must have all gone south of us to you Ted.

[Allisa]

Originally Posted by BigVanVader

This thread reminds me of the old Chinese proverb "There is more than one way to skin a cat"

There is another proverb: "Two people have three opinions")))

[ContainerTed]

Shapshftr, what we got came from just west of Lexington, KY (and east of Louisville), and plowed diagonally down thru to our neck of the woods. Middlesboro, KY got hit with the worst that included 1" hail. We got a direct hit by a cell that blossomed right over top of us and then joined the big one just before it hit Morristown, TN.

My garden needed the rain, but Mother Nature could have kept the heavy wind.

[PaulF]

I like the proverb,"I'm going to do it the way I want so don't confuse me with the facts."

Or the one my kids put on a t-shirt they gave me for father's day (a long time ago),"You can do things my way or the wrong way." They now do things the right way.

My favorite t-shirt gift... OFF TOPIC..., "The older I get, the faster I was."

[Worth1]

And to think I almost bought a pair of fancy high priced pruning shears.

[Urbanheirlooms]

Originally Posted by loulac

No it's not, it's surgery !

I prune mine with scissors and call it "giving them a haircut"

[AKmark]

Worth, that is way too funny. LOL HAHAHA

[MrBig46]

:
Vladimír

[MrBig46]

And to think I almost bought a pair of fancy high priced pruning shears. [/QUOTE]

I use a pruning shears only for cutting fruit trees. On what about you?
Vladimír

[loulac]

Originally Posted by MrBig46

I use a pruning shears only for cutting fruit trees. On what about you?Vladimír

I must say I find it a bit irritating to see the birth of a new thread dealing with a subject that has been commented on lots of time, though I undertand that with 20,000 people being active on Tville hundreds of moderators would be needed to keep the place tidy.
On the other hand a new thread gives opportunities to learn what problems Tvillians have to face, nature isn't always all that friendly.

Worth gave me a good laugh, I can't help imagining an empty freezer in his home...

Shears or no shears ? suckers can be snapped off most of the time between one's fingers but sometimes I make a mess and lacerate the main stem when they are too big...
The problem is more tricky with the lower leaves I refuse to see in contact with the soil. I play it safe and cut them with small shears used to pick up grapes in vineyards.