Pruning Tomatoes (& a life)

It's only hard because you don't know what's coming.

Have you ever roasted cherry tomatoes with fresh basil, evoo, a little salt? If not, you should. ;)

I’m in charge of our cherry tomatoes this year. Last year, our neighbor grew them all, and though they sold well, his hatred for the frequent picking required of cherry tomatoes showed through in the way they arrived at our farm on Fridays before market. He loves growing the big, fat, heirlooms—”Early Girl”, and “Cherokee Purple”—and he’s good at it too—but I was tired of sorting through sadly unloved cherry tomatoes late into the evening before market, so I told him this year, I’d grow the cherries myself.

I love to put our tomatoes in little medley pints—the colors bursting the second you glance towards our farm stand—because tomatoes are a feast for the eyes as much as they are a feast for the body. This year, I’m growing “Sun Gold”, “Queen Bee”, and “Black Cherry”; yellow, pink, and black/green respectively. No red. Because you can always find a lovely red cherry tomato at the grocery store, and that is not what I’m trying to be.

I started them from seed myself in the cold of March. I potted them up once they got a few inches tall, carefully baptizing their leaves to remove as many aphids as I possibly could. They took off after that, and a few weeks later, we moved the plants down to our newly constructed hoop house. They grew, and grew, and grew, getting bushier by the day.

These were our tomatoes a few weeks before we moved them down to the hoop house.

All spring, my husband has asked me, “Is it time? You’re in charge of the tomatoes. You get to decide how, and when, you want to prune them.” He bought me two sets of sharp pruning shears in April as a present, because this is the kind of gift he knows I appreciate. I won’t have dull shears touching by precious tomatoes plants.

Finally, pruning day arrived. After watching and rewatching my youtube tutorial videos, I began pruning. Finding the first flower cluster, looking for the sucker directly beneath, pruning back all the others. It was hard at first, and painful to see how many leaves and shoots I was removing; but I reminded myself that pruning is part of the process. I cannot support all the suckers going in every direction. I cannot get enough airflow and sunlight to all the fruits of a plant I allow to go wild. Tomatoes are, perhaps, too generous—the queens of overextending. I must choose wisely what will stay, and what must go. It is my gift to them, and to myself.

And it made me wonder, maybe if we all had to prune 150 tomato plants in an afternoon, we’d find it easier to make decisions about what will stay, and what must go in our lives. It’s only hard when we don’t believe in the good that’s coming from the necessary pruning. I find it hard often—and some losses still sear me like a phantom limb.

But I have tasted a perfect tomato. And though I haven’t done this before myself, I believe in the wisdom of the gardeners who have gone before me, teaching me how to gently pinch out the little suckers, promising the plants that good is just around the corner. This loss, which may feel shocking and dramatic all in one day, will not feel like loss forever.

I’m no longer talking about tomatoes.

Some paths we cannot follow forever—they cannot be sustained. Some (seemingly) good things must be removed, for the future health of us and our work. And it’s a shock, but look at my tomato plants—picture pink, and yellow, and black cherry tomatoes bursting from clamshells at the farmers market—and tell me it’s not worth it, somehow, someway?

These are the rhythms of the world we live in—the little signs everywhere of what it means to steward, and tend, and exist as our full selves. I believe God put them there as little reminders, and I’ll probably write about these little glimpses a lot here now that I am allowing the vine of my farm life to develop alongside the vine of my poetry here in this Substack space. Even here, the pruning feels difficult, but the purpose is good. I must wait for the fruit.

Out my office window I can see the ground is still damp with the rain we’ve been blessed to receive this week. In a few more minutes, I’ll finish my coffee, publish this essay, and pull on my overalls to head to the farm.

And the first thing I’ll do is check and see how my tomatoes are faring—it’s been two days since they’ve been pruned, and the shock may still be fresh. I’ll run my fingers over the leaves and tell them, “it’s okay. You can trust me. I will give you what you need.”

Then, later, I’ll pull them from their too-small pots, carve a space in the earth, and tuck the dirt around their stems like a blanket.

“See?” I’ll say, “Now you can really grow.”

I think they’ll probably believe me.

The last tomato I pruned on Wednesday. I think I was getting pretty good at it by the end. Isn’t she pretty?