Pruning and Trellising Tomatoes

In years past I have tried over and over again to use tomato cages with a range of results.  I have found that letting tomatoes grow uncontrolled almost always ends up as a heavy, tangled mess of vines that make harvesting tomatoes quite difficult.  I have also noticed that they tend to get blight more easily when I grow in this fashion.

This year I am trying something different.  Instead of cages I am going to try trellising them using a fence made of t-posts and baling twine.  I planted five plants on either side of the fence and as they grow taller I am going to help support them by tying them to the trellis using more baling twine.  The other thing I am trying this year is heavy pruning.  I have never pruned my tomatoes before, but I've heard you get a better crop if you prune all the suckers off a plant.  Pruning also helps air circulate better among the plants which helps reduce blight problems due to moisture.

When I pruned the tomato plants I tried to identify the leading shoot on the plant before I started cutting off the suckers.  Larger plants were a little harder to do , so in some cases I left two leaders on the plant.  The suckers closest to the soil had already become quite thick and I had to use scissors to remove them.  The smaller suckers were easy to pinch off.  I made sure to trim all the suckers off the bottom 8-12 inches of the plant if they were tall enough.  I'm sure I will have to re-prune them all in a few weeks, but today was just to get them ready to tie up to the trellis.

Once they were all trimmed I started tying them up to the trellis.  I used the lowest "rung" of the trellis to support the base of the plants and to guide them closer to the trellis as they grow taller.  The next rung up is currently supporting the tops of the growing plants.  On some of the taller ones that had begun to flower I made sure to place the support under the young flower stalk. Once these flowers become fruit they will be quite heavy and will need all the support they can get so they don't break off the stem.  A few of the plants were tall enough to reach the third rung.  At this level I used the ties as more of a guide to keep the plants growing in the right direction.  I am trying to train each plant to stay more or less in line with where I planted it.  Tomatoes can easily grow out of control if you let them, so this year I am hoping that the trellis is up to the task of taming the tomatoes.