Pruning tomato plants for second crop--pictures added

Yesterday I cut our Celebrity tomato plants (semi-determinant) back by 1/2 to 1/3, and gave them a good watering. I'll keep watering them to keep them alive, and then this fall when cooler weather and rain (hopefully) arrives, they will set bloom and tomatoes. I've done this since we moved to Texas and I realized that fall in Texas is summer in New York!
I don't get a huge crop, but enough to share. When cold threatens, we go out, pick everything that is golf ball size or bigger, and put them to ripen in the laundry room. We had ripe home-grown tomatoes with our Christmas dinner last year.
Now that I've bragged, it probably won't work this time. The tomato gods frown on hubris!

 

Hopefully I will find the time to give my greenhouse and high tunnel ones a good pruning and extend the season here too. They are starting to look a little sad inside there.

 

I really need to get better about pruning. Pruning just feels so wasteful to me.

 

Pruning tomatoes is simply taking off non-producing limbs, those which are past their prime, and letting the existing root system send out new growth which will set blossoms and tomatoes for a second crop.
I agree, pruning is one of the hardest things for a gardener to do, but if you think of it as "renewal" instead of "removal" it gets a lot easier!

 

Jane, Can you send a picture of pruned plants? I need visual as well as written instructions. :-?

 

I usually just take off limbs and root them. I need a break between spring and fall gardens. Had so many tomatoes I was getting ready to kill them myself.

 

Donna, I'll try to take pictures tomorrow and post them the next day.
Mart, if you didn't use that great manure-in-a-bottle fertilizing system, you might not drown in tomatoes! I've used the rooted branch method also, but I get impatient and since my plants have a great big root system, I just go with the ones that I have rather than starting new ones. However, I'm glad you reminded me of rooting limbs. I'll mention that at the community garden this week.

 

I've never seen my parents EVER pruning tomatoes. I will tell them about it

 

Many do not prune. Its kind of a personal preference.

 

By July our tomatoes are pretty well finished--heat, lack of rain, and the fact that they were planted in March--all contributes to their lack of vigor. By pruning, I can rejuvenate the plants, get fresh growth, and a small second crop if the weather cooperates.

 

My two tomato plants are over.

 

Take a branch cutting and root it !! Start again !!

 

Mart, I know people who would KILL for your tomatoes. ;>)

 

They should have come to Texas. I could not can, freeze, eat or give them away fast enough. The thing is,, most were in the same boat I was. I tried to give a bag to the person that picks up our trash and he said no, thank you. He had been hauling his to work by the bag full and giving them to co-workers. I just need more older people to move in to our area. Thats where most of my excess goes. I even had a neighbor helping give them away.

 

Donna, here are the photos I promised:


Unpruned tomato plant ( photo / image / picture from marlingardener's Garden )
This plant is unpruned, and I'll be taking off the larger, older limbs to help it rejuvenate.


Pruned tomato plant ( photo / image / picture from marlingardener's Garden )
This is what is left after pruning. The size is about 1/3 of the original plant, but you can see there is new growth starting at the base and on some of the younger limbs.