Debate: Should you prune your balcony tomatoes or let them go wild?

I was at a community garden workshop in Portland last summer when the instructor snipped half my plant's leaves and said it's the only way to get bigger fruit. But my neighbor grows hers completely unpruned on her balcony and gets tomatoes just as big. So which is it - prune hard or let them do their thing on a small balcony?

2 comments

2 Comments

elliotl244d ago

Let them go wild. Pruning is just extra work for no real payoff on a balcony where space is tight and sunlight's already limited.

bettymurphy4d ago

My friend Jenna tried the "just let them go wild" approach on her balcony last summer. She had this little mint plant that started taking over everything, wound around her tomato vines so bad they couldnt get any sun. By August she was out there every day trying to untangle this green monster from her railing and her other pots. It turned into this huge chore she had to do anyway, just way messier and more annoying than regular pruning would have been. She finally yanked the whole thing out and started over from scratch.