Tomato Maintenance: Pinching Growth Tips

 

 

To pinch or not to pinch? That is the question.

Many believe that Shakespearian works were heavily influenced by the pinching conundrum yet it remains one important question to which he did not find a definitive answer, and so the debate still rages. What side of the fence you sit on seems to hinge on the philosophical question: is less ever more?

Proponents of more is more camp believe that by not pinching out growth you get more plant with more opportunities to form fruit. Surely only a fool would deny a plant to reach its full potential, so why pinch?

Pinching enthusiasts – like us – know that by pinching out the growth tips you form a plant that is stronger, fitter, better looking and better able to cope with fruit development. Perhaps you get less flowers and in theory, less fruit. However, we have found that the fruit that develops is a superior breed and more likely to reach maturity. 

Pruning tomato plants is an optional technique that some gardeners use to keep plants tidy, manipulate fruit size, and even speed ripening. There is one big catch: you should only prune indeterminate varieties, which produce new leaves, flowers and fruit continuously throughout the growing season. Determinate varieties, commonly known as "bush" tomatoes, will reach a set growth height (around 1.5 meters) and produce all of their fruit at one time.