Plant Pruning

Good afternoon gardeners!

This growing season we (The Consumption Literacy Project) knows you want to maximize plant growth and harvests.   Here are some tips to help your plants thrive this growing season. 

In the early stages of plant growth it is important to help the plant know where to send its energy. To help the plant us gardeners can prune (trim down) plants to help the plant thrive. 

To do so it is very easy.  Dependent on the plant pruning can be very crucial to a plants success. 

Plants to prune in early stages:

• Tomatoes

• Peppers

• Squash

• Shrubs 

• Flowers

• Trees 

How to prune? 

For most plants pruning is a key stage to help with plant succession. With tomatoes, peppers and squash picking the fruit off while the plant is still small is very important to help encourage the plant to focus on growing large before producing fruit. To do this, pick or cut the small fruits off from the plant directly above the head of the fruit. 

Another way to prune your plants is to pick leaves off and secondary sprouts. On tomato plants, leaves touching the soil and two inches up from the soil are good to pick and will help encourage plant growth and production. 

Pruning is very essential to plant growth and can make or break your growing season. If you see dead/dying leaves also pick those so the plant knows to no longer direct energy to that portion of the plant. 

Thanks for reading, and good luck with your growing season. Continue to follow along this season for more tips and information about the gardens. 

For more information and a visual check out this YouTube post:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvPMzYjg-9I 

With gratitude, The Consumption Literacy Project.