Prune your Tomatoes, Grapes, and Cannabis this Month for Larger Fruit

 

It’s high summer and your crops are at their peak. Now is the time to prune those plants strategically in order to increase the size of your harvest.

Tomatoes: By now your tomato plants are chest high and—hopefully—full of fruits and yellow flowers. Pruning off lower branches, lower leaves, and un-fruiting shoots will increase airflow around the plants and help stave off diseases that can take over at this time of year. Additionally, reducing the density of leafy branches will let more light hit the fruit, and this will help your tomatoes get large and begin to color up.

Grapes: Just like your tomato plants, your grapevines have by now formed this year’s fruits. As daylight diminishes, you can help the grapes swell and ripen by pruning away all western-facing leaves that are near the fruit clusters to bring more light to the fruit.

Cannabis: Those precious buds are swelling, and you can help them mature by pruning off the leaves that are close to each bud. This reduction of biomass will give the plant more light and airflow, thus making it less likely to contract powdery mildew.

 

Happy Gardening!

 

Joshua Burman Thayer’s Gardener’s Notebook is filled with gardening advice for every season. Visit the whole collection of articles here.

Get expert help with your garden by calling Joshua Burman Thayer at 510.332.2809.

Learn more about food forests and permaculture landscape design at nativesungardens.com and from Joshua Burman Thayer’s book, Food Forests for First Timers.