Green Thumb Gardening

By: Nick Boulton

As a boy I would enjoy watching my mother’s father, my Papa, work in his farm and going out to help him in it. I also enjoyed the many great things that would come from all his hard work, and at times, my hard work. Really though the majority of the credit needs to go to him and my Nana. I remember all the pies, cobblers, and meals that they would prepare all throughout the year that they would harvest from their garden, and share with us. Any time we visited, the kitchen would be filled with the aroma of baking cobblers, pies or breads, spaghetti sauces or canned food, fruit leather and meats. We would gorge ourselves! A lot of care and time went not only into cooking and preparing food, but growing it as well.

My favorite thing, still to this day, that he would make was strawberry rhubarb pie. For weeks in advance Papa would tell us to stay out of the strawberries and not to eat them so that he could make the pie for us. Otherwise all the strawberries would “disappear” along with the grapes, raspberries, blackberries, peaches and pears. With 16 grandkids, I’m sure you can’t imagine how this would ever happen...

Wink Wink!

One of the things that I remember my Papa doing was watching him prune his tomato plants, along with all the other crops and plants daily. As a child I never understood why pruning was done and how this would help the plant and not hurt it. I would sit and watch him go over his dozens of plants, some being small and others being larger. Each one got the same amount of care and thoughtful nurturing.

As I watched and helped the best I could, he explained that it is a way of not only training the plant, but maintaining the plant to help it to its fullest capability. This is obviously an optional technique and some may choose to not do any at all. But I have to say the yield that my Papa got every year was amazing! And this was not only the tomatoes, but many other plants that he would methodically prune and maintain to perfection.

As far as pruning your tomatoes though, it is important to make sure that your tomato plant is an in-determinant tomato plant and not a determinant. If it is a determinant plant you could hurt the yield quantity and quality of the tomatoes that will be produced by pruning it. Most of the time you can find this out by the variety of plant it is. Pruning will also help with more air flow and less leaves to be infected with pests. In the early to mid-season, remove all leafy suckers just beneath the first cluster of blossoms so that they will not slow the continued growth and development of the fruit. Suckers are the tiny shoots that form in the spot called the axil.

This is where the leaf stern attaches onto the main stem. In our warmer climate area it is often recommended to practice what’s called Missouri Pruning. This is where you pinch off the leaflets on the end of each sucker, leaving only the two base leaflets in place. As these leaves will enlarge, they can help with shading the fruit and protecting it from Sunscald.

As an adult, looking back on all that my Papa taught us and all the time that he spent in his garden with us, I now see what a joy it was for him and us to maintain and nurture plants to their fullest potential...even if us grandkids ate a good majority of the food before it even made it to the kitchen.

With that little bit of helpful tip on tomatoes, let’s just get the warm weather here and we’ll be off to the garden to make sure that we are getting it ready for this upcoming spring. Here’s to doing everything for those new plants to yield the most they can for us, and those around us!