Pruning Tomatoes

In today's Fine Gardening newsletter, it points to an article and video on how to properly prune and train tomatoes to increase yields. Rather than letting tomato plants spread, the suggestion is to properly prune and stake the tomato plants as a single stalk. This approach suggests that the plant will produce larger and earlier crops than when left in a prostrate form. By staking and growing the tomato plants vertically, this allows for more plants in the the same space. Article and video can be found at the Fine Gardening site>

A moon tree and space tomatoes

Photo: Alan Ladwig, senior adviser to the NASA administrator, looks at a newly planted moon sycamore tree, in honor of Earth Day and the 40th anniversary of the Apollo Program at NASA, at the National Arboretum in Washington on April 22, 2009. The tree was grown from a second-generation seed from seeds flown to the moon

All the talk today about the anniversary of the first landing on the moon brings back memories for many people. One of mine is about gardening.

Back in 1971, NASA astronaut Stuart Roosa, on his way to the moon aboard Apollo 14, took along seeds of five tree species – Douglas fir, loblolly pine, redwood, sweet gum, and sycamore. (Click here for more background and details.)

Roosa was a smoke jumper for the US Forest Service before he became an astronaut, so when he and the seeds returned from their historic journey, the Forest Service germinated the seeds. The resulting trees were dubbed “moon trees,” of course.

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The Hungry Gardener: To prune or not to prune - JSOnline

Q&A article on Gardening. Read more:
The Hungry Gardener: To prune or not to prune - JSOnline Source: jsonline.com

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Food: Preventing blight in your garden tomatoes

By ROBERT KESSLER / Special to The Herald-Mail
July 7, 2009

This year's wet weather is causing many disease problems for gardeners. Since tomatoes are the most popular vegetable grown in gardens, we will mention what you should be doing to help prevent potential problems.

Tomatoes will get three major diseases in weather like this. Septoria leaf spot is a fungal disease that usually appears on the lower leaves of the plant and works its way up the plant. The affected leaves turn yellow and drop, reducing the plant's ability to produce food, which will reduce the production of tomatoes on the plant.

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Food: Preventing blight in your garden tomatoes

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Garden chores: pruning tomato plants

All this rain has sure been good for the tomatoes.

Maybe too good.

My plants, heirloom Brandywine, are almost 6 feet tall, and there are more than a dozen tomatoes on each plant, with dozens more blooms.

But the rain has encouraged more than the fruit to grow. The leaves and branches are close to choking the cages around the plants.

I know all about pinching off the "suckers" that appear in the joint between the branch and the trunk. They grow into branches that never produce fruit and only sap the plant of energy.

But for a more detailed look at how to prune your tomatoes - as well as an explanation of why you should - take a look at this article and video on the Fine Gardening mazgazine web site.

The goal is to reduce the leaf surface, which draws energy and sugar from the production of fruit.

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By Susan Reimer at 10:00 AM in Weekend Chores

Meeting Challenges with Plant Propagation

Video on some applied applications of plant propagation to solve horticultural challenges in the landscape, orchard, and greenhouse. .