If you have decided to try tomato plant pruning, you need to make sure that you do it the correct way to help reduce the chances of disease.

• You want to start pruning tomato plants a when they get to be about 1 – 2 feet (30-60 cm.) tall.
• Any smaller than this, and the plant may not recover from the shock of being pruned.
• By the time your tomato plant gets to be this size, the plant will have branches coming off the main stem.
• Where these branches meet, you will see and additional branch growing. This is called a tomato sucker.
• Using a sharp, clean pair of pruning shears, snip these small sucker branches off.
• The best time to prune tomato plants is in the early morning on a dry day.
• This will allow for the wounds from the pruning to heal cleanly and will reduce the chances of the plant being infected by disease.
• If you choose to prune tomato plants, make sure that you use watering methods that water the tomato plants at the soil level (like soaker hoses) rather than from above (like sprinklers).
• This will prevent the splashing of soil up onto the tomato plant and the tomato plants wounds.