To prune or not to prune?

[guruofgardens]

Originally Posted by PaulF

As said numerous times when a pruning question arises...no pruning. BUT, the bottom branches that are in contact with the ground or mulch or may grow that direction, get pruned. Those will not affect either size nor numbers.

I love the large untrimmed plants as well. The thirty five plants in the garden have their spaces defined early...as in planting time...and they are all given four feet 6 inches from the next plant in every direction so there is no worry about whether to trim and put in a few extra plants and crowd the tomatoes together. As a home gardener, an added production of a few tomatoes is not worth the hassle. I love large tomatoes and choose varieties to achieve that goal rather than prune to get fewer but perhaps larger fruit by what, a couple of ounces? Again, not worth the effort.

Air flow is important in disease prevention and with the spacing the plants are given there has been no serious problem. Again, spacing and a good mulching program alleviates the need to prune for air flow.

So, that's the explanation for no pruning. You pruners go ahead and hack up an otherwise beautiful plant if you want, but this old fat guy won't do it.

Best answer for me, too. My plants have 4' space, are only pruned on the bottom, are mulched with newspaper between the dirt and shredded leaves. We have low humidity so I will not prune any suckers. The plants usually overgrow their CRW cages so I do prune the tops near the beginning of September.

Each to his own, mostly determined by weather/climate.