On June 30th, I went to work on pruning my long row of 19 tomato plants. There are two schools of thought (that I know of) on tomato pruning: those that do and those that don’t. On the farm I worked at last year, the farmer chose not to prune in favor of more growth and potentially more fruit. And, no doubt, on the scale of a farm, pruning tomatoes could get very time consuming.
I, however, have been eager to prune my own tomatoes because I happen to be in the school of thought that pruning improves plant health and the quality of the fruit. For me, I don’t need bushels of tomatoes, but I would very much like to have the best quality I can get. As such, I don’t mind if I inadvertantly limit the blossom potential on my plants when I cut them back. With fewer leaves and suckers, I’ll have more upright plants that make harvesting easier.
I used this detailed article to fine-tune my pruning technique. The article also gives plenty of reasons to advocate for pruning. It’s a good read if you’re curious.
After the tomato pruning was done, I put some transplants I’d grown in the ground: calendula and wild bergamot in the tea garden and china asters and fragrant stock in the cutting garden. I also added bone meal around my City of York rose.
I actually had a few moments to rest on the chair in the tea garden and contemplate how to move forward with my design now that most of my major planting is done. I need some supports for varioud plants in my cutting garden. I also am on the hunt for ways to improve the performance of my eggplant and squash plants. Both crops have been lagging in growth. I did some research, and, while the rest of my garden is now thriving on a once-a-week deep watering, I think I might need to water both the squash and eggplant more often to get them to grow faster. If that doesn’t work, I’ll take a soil test.
After dark, I headed into the potting shed to seed my winter squash in #50 flats. I sowed butternut and “blue ballet” squash. Hopefully these will germinate nicely and I’ll put them in the row where the lettuce will soon be popped out (it has just begun to bolt).
