Home Grown Tomatoes - Pruning for produce

VIDEO click here - How To Prune Tomatoes (Pruning)

The video link above is a good video explanation of how to get the highest yield out of your garden's tomato plants.  By keeping the plant growing upward until one month before frost, your tomato plant can provide you with the best quantity and quality of fruit.  

Another way to increase yield, especially in cooler climates such as mine, is to mulch with a solar mulch that will increase the ground temperature in the early months of summer.  Cover them with row cover which will provide additional protection from late spring frost and chilly days.  It is difficult to get row cover to extend the length of your growing season with tomatoes because they are so large by the end of the season.  In this case, a hot house is the best option.  If you don't have a hot house for your heat loving plants (tomatoes), plant them next to a wall that has full southern exposure to the sun.  The building will provide a great deal of insulation from the cold at night as well as intensification of the natural heat from the sun during the daytime.

Tomatoes are rich in many nutrients that are health protective.  Growing them at home can offer you the best quality for the price.  When you become the farmer, you know exactly how the plants were treated.  You can be sure that your home grown vegetables are chemical and pesticide free.  

Here are a few things that tomatoes can do for you:

• Lycopene offers protection to the bones as well as cancer protection.  It especially helps fight prostate cancer.
• Rich in antioxidants which are cancer and bone health protective.
• Rich in Vitamins A, B1, B3, B6, C and K.
• One cup of raw tomato  has 12% daily value of potassium.
• High in fiber!