Training tomatoes
If
you ask ten gardeners the best way to manage tomatoes, you'll get
twenty answers. We've tried out a different method every year,
and still haven't found one we're truly happy with. This year
we're using out the old standby --- one stake per plant, then prune to
three main stems.
The Master Gardeners of
Santa Clara County have a very comprehensive page about the advantages
and disadvantages of different tomato support methods. They note that the
one stake method results in less productive plants, which is the reason
I've steered clear of pruning in the past.
On the other hand, the
tomato blight is still in the air this year across the eastern U.S.,
and I'm willing to accept a lower yield if I actually get something. Pruning does have the
advantage of keeping the plant drier, which means that fungi don't have
the humid environment they need to thrive. Here's hoping that
drastic pruning and other blight
prevention will give
us a crop.
Or explore more posts by date or by subject.
About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
Want to be notified when new comments are posted on this page? Click on the RSS button after you add a comment to subscribe to the comment feed, or simply check the box beside "email replies to me" while writing your comment.