Pruning the tomato plant...

[MomToTwoBoys]

In an effort to salvage the tomato plant that grew way too high for its support structure and bent over pretty bad, I went ahead and decided that it would be best to prune the plant at the top. A lot of the fruit was on the middle part of the plant, so I wasn't too concerned with losing fruit in the process that may be at the top.

(I'm not quite done yet but it'll take most of the weekend.)

I started cutting off the branches on each of the major branches that weren't already producing fruit. The reason for this is to help direct the water from the roots into the fruit that was already there. I'm not terribly concerned with any of the flowers that may have opened up, but have yet to sprout any fruit. My main focus is allowing the fruit to grow and then ripen without restricting it of any extra energy that was going to the other branches.

I feel like a murderer.

The plant definitely looks healthier and I haven't finished the top pruning as of yet. I decided that if I was going to help the entire plant out, I'd snip off extra branches throughout the plant as well.

I'm more concerned with one plant than the others because none of the other plants have fallen over yet. It's also harder to work on the left side tomato plant because of a bee hive located nearby and my allergy to being stung.

I'm hoping that with this procedure, the plant will finish growing the rest of the already-started fruit and help to ripen the fruit that's already full grown.

[frugalfranny]

Depending on our weather forecast, I do this each fall so I can get bigger fruit to gather just before the frost. Usually do it towards end of Sept.

Good luck........hope it helps your plant.