Julie
02-24-2009, 01:09 PM
A piece of advice from a Tennessee old-timer
I visited an older market gardener in Tennessee some years ago. His early tomatoes were just hitting the stand. Business was brisk around the baskets of tomatoes. I complimented him on the fine-looking tomatoes, and told him I had a question.
?Go ahead and ask it,? he said, smiling.
?Well,? I said, ?the other growers around here don?t have many tomatoes to sell yet, and here you are tucked behind a ridge where it must be cool sometimes ? just how are you getting tomatoes so early??
He laughed. ?Come on out back and I?ll show you.?
Going past the barn he picked up a round-pointed shovel and carried it along. We stopped in front of a tomato plant loaded with clusters of large green tomatoes.
?Watch,? he said. He dug deep into the soil 6 inches from the plant. He spaded a few more times to make a half-circle cut around the plant. ?They?ll be ripe inside of a week,? he said flatly.
He said he ?root-pruned? some plants with his shovel three times. ?The plants don?t know what?s happening,? he said. ?They just figure it?s high time to ripen those green tomatoes. They do it quickly, too.?
Each year I try this trick in my own garden on a few plants? especially the early ones. My soil is sandy and I can use a long bread knife to cut a semicircle around the plant in a jiffy. If you try it, be sure the green tomatoes are about as large as they?re going to get. Root-pruning at that point will bring the quickest results. The plants recover from this root shock and continue to yield throughout the season.
http://garden.blogtells.com/2008/07/05/let-s-relax-about-pruning-tomatoes/
I visited an older market gardener in Tennessee some years ago. His early tomatoes were just hitting the stand. Business was brisk around the baskets of tomatoes. I complimented him on the fine-looking tomatoes, and told him I had a question.
?Go ahead and ask it,? he said, smiling.
?Well,? I said, ?the other growers around here don?t have many tomatoes to sell yet, and here you are tucked behind a ridge where it must be cool sometimes ? just how are you getting tomatoes so early??
He laughed. ?Come on out back and I?ll show you.?
Going past the barn he picked up a round-pointed shovel and carried it along. We stopped in front of a tomato plant loaded with clusters of large green tomatoes.
?Watch,? he said. He dug deep into the soil 6 inches from the plant. He spaded a few more times to make a half-circle cut around the plant. ?They?ll be ripe inside of a week,? he said flatly.
He said he ?root-pruned? some plants with his shovel three times. ?The plants don?t know what?s happening,? he said. ?They just figure it?s high time to ripen those green tomatoes. They do it quickly, too.?
Each year I try this trick in my own garden on a few plants? especially the early ones. My soil is sandy and I can use a long bread knife to cut a semicircle around the plant in a jiffy. If you try it, be sure the green tomatoes are about as large as they?re going to get. Root-pruning at that point will bring the quickest results. The plants recover from this root shock and continue to yield throughout the season.
http://garden.blogtells.com/2008/07/05/let-s-relax-about-pruning-tomatoes/