pruning: rosemary, tomatoes, and basil

So I have searched every where, watch every video on youtube and i Don't get pruning. Allot of different places you cut, different times you cut, etc. etc.

Can someone lay it out for me really simply: HOW and WHEN for rosemary, tomatoes, and basil.

Tomatoes and Basil are seedlings (is it too early to prune???), rosemary is a small bought plant. I want thick busy plants that will yield allot.

Ryan: prune rosemary only when you want to use some in something yer gonna cook up....unless you want to sculpt it. Many rosemarys will live 5 to 10 years. I have a four year old one in a pot and it's a very nice bush at this point. Pot size is d. 14" with the usual terra cotta shape 12" deep. It needs a bigger pot at this point or to be in the ground. We have another in the back yard that previous tenants planted and it huge and woody, some of it has been dying back but it is around that 10 year mark best we can figure.

The only reason I know of pruning basil is to keep it from flowering, you can prolong it's season that way. But I would think in NC it should live until at least November without doing anything to alter it. We love clipping our basil flowers and using them inside. Sure it's 'dainty' and 'pretty' but the gf loves it. :)
You can even use the flowers in cooking or better yet, raw in a salad.

Tomatoes, I don't know, I would guess that has to do with the variety. I've never pruned any of mine. I'm guessing you would want to prune to get a higher yield? I'm curious about your questions as well, maybe someone can shed more light on this.

New:

Rosemary, how far back can you cut it. I've read about some "woody" part, it didn't make much sense to me

Basil, my seedlings now have 4 sets of leaves, with the buds (tiny leaves) at each intersection, I think, for what I have read I can cut this back to the second from the bottom, but I'm not sure..... When does a seedling become a plant?


maybe someone could clarify this for us? :)

I am sooooo jealous. My basil won't even be planted for another month. Sigh.

With full size basil, an early pruning can force the plant to bush out, which is good. New branches form in pairs at the leaf nodes, so leave 2-4 pairs of leaves on the main stem. Try 4 this year. You can be more aggressive when you gain confidence. When you see flowers forming, try to trim every flowering branch back 2-4 nodes to delay flowering. All trimmings (flowers too) are edible. This usually calls for Bruschetta or Pesto. After flowering, my plants survive, but they lose flavor and vigor.

Small basil, like windowbox, will branch like crazy all by itself. Trimming it is more like haircutting than pruning. Still, if you have the dexterity and patience, it's best to cut it between leaf nodes. I use nail scissors. Windowbox basil in full flower is as beautiful a plant as you will ever see. It's almost a shame to eat it. Almost. :))

Ed

Hard to see in picture but basically you cut the top of the plant off just above the node to promote a bushier plant. (You could cut the ends of growing branches off in a similar fashion) It isn't necessary and the only reason I did it is because the weather isn't cooperating with me and I'm having to keep my plants inside longer than I had hoped. I marked in red where you could cut. The main reason for waiting until the plant has at least 2 sets of true leaves is to ensure it will survive the pruning. The smaller plant in foreground is dwarf basil and was already branching out nicely but I started eating the purple basil and decided to eat a couple more pinches so the bush plants got snipped too. Sorry for the crappy picture but thought it might help...

Here is a really good article on pruning tomatoes and it also talks about determinate vs. indeterminate varieties:

http://www.finegardening.com/how-to/articles/pruning-tomatoes.aspx

That was a good article! Thanks so much. I went right out and did a little judicious pruning on my tomatoes. I also enjoyed reading the article on heirloom tomatoes that was an offshoot of the one you provided. Thanks, greenhouse_gal. LiseP

Excellent article... Thanks.. Enjoyed the heirloom article too... Ed

I hadn't noticed the heirloom article. Thanks for the heads-up; it was interesting!

Pinch off the top of the Basil every few days to make a bushy, fantastic plant. When I don't, for me it gets tall and woody and taste like licorice.

greenhousegal: That was a great link...I've grown tomatos for a number of years with decent success, but I tend to let most of my plants just be and 'do what they do'. I only have one big one right now, she's a creole but about two feet tall and already starting to produce. I do have the problem of a large lower branch that isn't flowering yet, so from what I read on that article I'm guess I should go ahead and cut it off (it is certainly lower than the two branches producing flowers).

As far as Ryans question about 'woody stem' on a rosemary...if your rosemary is less than three years old I really wouldn't bother other than what you want to use for cooking. New growth on a rosemary is going to be white, then turning to green, and eventually brown over a few seaons. Sorta like with the basil it depends on what you want the plant to do. I do know that it does no good to cut the woody parts back...that's it it's the end. But if it's getting thin and leggy, anything you can pinch off with your fingers should be fine.

For the basil, I still think it's all about asethetics. Last spring I shared some seeds with a neighbor and they kept theirs pruned back, and yes, it was much more bushy, they didn't let it flower and it lived until January. For ours, I basically just trimmed as needed for cooking or putting in the vase- they grew to about three feet tall, got tons of good seeds off of them. Then we had a single plant of another variety that bushed out on it's own, and only grew to about 2'. There are so many types. Oh, our non-pruned ones still lived just about as long....we had a weird once every few years occurance and it snowed here for one day in December and that sorta signaled the end of the basil.

Peace and chicken grease.