A Trick to Growing Tomatoes: What to Prune and Why You Need It — Advice from Experienced Gardeners
When growing seedlings, summer residents and gardeners pay special attention to tomatoes, peppers and eggplants.
In addition to standard watering, fertilizing and lighting, plants need hardening. And if we talk about tomatoes, then you can’t do without pruning.
Anastasia Kovrizhnykh , an expert of the online publication "BelNovosti", an agronomist and landscape designer, told how to grow strong tomato seedlings.
Summer cottage trick
According to experts, the lower leaves are bothering the plant.
In addition, normal ventilation is disrupted, which causes pathogenic microorganisms to multiply in the soil and the seedlings to become ill.
That's why it's so important to trim the lower leaves in a timely manner. They say this will help avoid the risk of late blight and other diseases spreading.
It has also been noted that after pruning, the level of moisture evaporation decreases, due to which the roots do not dry out and the seedlings need to be watered less often.
As a rule, the lower leaves are removed. After this, the seedlings are taken out onto the balcony or into a heated greenhouse for several hours – for hardening.
The seedlings are placed so that they are not exposed to direct sunlight, and the air temperature is kept within 15-18 degrees Celsius.
As the plant grows, the hardening time increases. As a result, transplanting into open ground is easier.
Earlier we told you what needs to be done to ensure that seedlings sprout on the third day.
