Pruning Overgrown Tomato Plants for Maximum Growth

Are you considering pruning overgrown tomato plants? Do you have a lot of leaves but barely any fruit on your tomato plant? Check out this post for tips to get you back on track!

Did you plant some really pretty tomato plants that now look like bushes? No worries! Planting the tomato is the easy part, retaining fruit is the goal! There are a few simple steps that you can follow to get more fruit on your plant. Pruning is essential for maximum growth.

Let’s get started with getting your plant harvest-ready!

This post is all bout pruning overgrown tomatoes to get a bountiful tomato harvest.

A Little About Tomato Plants

Unless you decide to grow your tomato from seed, you will start seeing tomato plants for sale in Spring. They will usually come in two categories:

• Determinate – Tomato plants that will only produce fruit once and grow to a certain size.
• Indeterminate – Tomato plants that will continuously grow and produce fruit until the end of the the growing season (first fall frost).

Tomatoes are grown in full sun in order for optimal growing conditions. Full sun is typically 8 hours of sunshine per day, and the soil should be well-drained.

Tomato Planting Hacks

When planting tomatoes, there are a few tried and true tricks to get a bountiful harvest.

Plant the tomato plant 6 inches deep into the ground. You will notice that a tomato plant is hairy. Those hairs are part of the root system. Once the hair comes into contact with the soil, it creates roots. What if your plant does not have 6 inches of stem available? No worries! Remove all of the leaves from the plant until you have just a few leaves at the top. However, before you plant it in the group put some rock phosphate in the bottom of the hole right before you drop in your plant. Rock phosphate will also aid in a stronger root system.

Tomatoes should be planted 2-3 feet apart. Always follow the instructions on the plant tag for the best results. You can also add additional soil amendments for tomatoes. You can find these at your local nursery or home improvement garden center.

Pruning Your Tomatoes

If you are in the mindset of growing fruit vs. growing a big pretty bush of tomato leaves, pruning is going to help you get to this goal. The part of the tomato that grows fruit is characterized by yellow flowers. So, yellow flowers = tomatoes.

It takes a lot of energy to grow fruit. In order to direct the energy to grow fruit, you need to remove leaves and branches that do not produce yellow flowers. You prune the tomato plant by removing branches that do not produce yellow flowers because yellow flowers = tomatoes. Flowers are easy to find because they generally grow from the main stem so don’t worry about accidentally removing them.

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If you don’t prune your tomato plant, you will have a wide and bushy plant. If your plant is on the ground, it may grow several feet wide with no fruit or small fruit. Pruning boosts flower power and gives you an abundance of tomatoes for the season.

Now that you know how to prune tomato plants, let the growing season begin!

This post was all about pruning overgrown tomato plants for maximum growth.