If Your Tomato Plants Don’t Look Like This, You’re Missing These 3 Steps
This Video is from the Youtube channel: “Homegrown Passion”.
Tomato growing tips for bigger harvests start with pruning, fruit thinning, pH balance, and keeping your plants healthy all season. In this video, I share 3 tomato growing secrets most gardeners are never taught — and show how I use them in my greenhouse tomato system to harvest 112 pounds of beautiful tomatoes for our CSA.
If your tomato plants are getting too leafy, producing small fruit, struggling with airflow, or not staying productive, these tips can help. I'll show you how I remove lower tomato branches without stressing the plant, why I thin tomato clusters down to fewer fruits for better size and consistency, and why pH and nutrient balance matter so much for healthy tomato production.
Even though I grow these tomatoes hydroponically in BATO buckets, these tomato growing principles can help backyard gardeners, greenhouse growers, raised bed gardeners, and hydroponic growers understand how to keep tomato plants balanced between leafy growth and fruit production.
In this video, you’ll learn:
How I prune lower tomato branches
Why I keep 12–13 leaf branches above the highest cut
Why removing too much foliage at once can stress tomato plants
How tomatoes balance vegetative growth and fruit production
Why I thin tomato clusters for bigger slicer tomatoes
How thinning helps avoid small, overloaded fruit clusters
Why airflow matters for healthier tomato plants
How pH affects nutrient uptake
My tomato EC, pH, and watering schedule
How I use a Dosatron system in the greenhouse
How I harvest tomatoes for our CSA program
I also give you a quick update on the new Patreon page and Growers School Pro program, where I'll be sharing deeper greenhouse growing content, nutrients, dosing, EC, pH, hydroponic systems, and behind-the-scenes farm decisions.
If you love tomato growing, greenhouse gardening, hydroponics, homesteading, CSA farming, and real farm life, make sure you subscribe to Homegrown Passion.
I’m also doing a deeper member-only video inside the Homegrown Passion Growers Circle showing the exact nutrients, mixing, dosing, and setup details I use for our hydroponic tomatoes.
💚 If you just want to support the channel and be part of what I’m building, there’s a simple level for that too.
👉 Join here:
Whether you're growing hydroponically, in a greenhouse, or just love farm life… I’m really glad you’re here.
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0:00 If Your Tomato Plants Don’t Look Like This…
0:36 Welcome Back to Homegrown Passion
0:46 Secret 1: Prune Lower Tomato Branches
1:10 Vegetative Growth vs Fruit Production
1:37 Better Airflow, Easier Harvesting & Less Disease
1:48 Secret 2: Remove Some Tomatoes
2:01 Thinning Tomato Clusters for Bigger Fruit
2:24 Why These Tips Make a Big Difference
2:35 Pollinating Greenhouse Tomatoes
3:11 Patreon & Growers School Pro Update
4:25 Secret 3: pH Matters More Than You Think
4:40 Nutrients, Dosatron, EC & pH
4:55 Our Tomato Feeding and Watering Schedule
5:18 Plum Tomatoes Are Going Crazy
5:36 Smoked Tomato Sauce Idea
5:56 Harvesting Tomatoes for CSA
7:01 The Tomatoes Are Coming In Hard
9:02 112 Pound Tomato Harvest
9:20 Keeping Tomato Plants Producing All Season
9:24 Coming Soon: Biggest Tomato Mistakes
9:31 Final Thoughts & Subscribe
Which tomato problem do you think hurts harvests the most — too much leafy growth, too many tomatoes per cluster, poor pruning, pH problems, or inconsistent watering? 🍅
I’ll be doing another video soon on the biggest tomato mistakes we see, so make sure you’re subscribed if you want to grow bigger, healthier tomatoes all season long.
So Glad to have you teaching skills back! Thank you for all your hard work and it was so nice to have coffee with Katy again.
That is so sweet of you to say, I’ve missed our coffee chats too! ❤
You must tell me more about that vertical smoker you got! 🥰
It’s been such a fun addition to the farm, I’d love to share more about it in a future update! ❤️ should I do a big beef brisket or smoked tomato sauce?
@HomegrownPassionboth!
I love the idea of smoking the tomatoes. They would taste great on a tomato pie.
I agree, that would be such a tasty way to use them! 🌱💚 I do have to say it was the best tomato sauce I ever made. I’ll make sure to do a video on smoked tomato sauce. ❤
I agree, that would be such a tasty way to use them! 🌱💚 I do have to say it was the best tomato sauce I ever made. I’ll make sure to do a video on smoked tomato sauce. ❤
Does your CSA program return your tomato boxes?
They do. I had made a delivery the week before so they had most of my boxes.
Great info! Thank you so much. The tomatoes look amazing. Have a great Memorial Day weekend!
Thank you so much, I hope you have a wonderful holiday weekend too! 🌱💚
Hi, as usual your videos really helps me. Where can I purchase the bobbins and strings you use? Also your nutrient ratio you use per gallon?
What an amazing harvest and thank you for the tips. The removing of a tomato to get them to produce better is a new one to me and now I have the PH balance in my head…like forever! Thanks so much for the information!
You’re very welcome, I’m happy to hear you learned something new! ❤️
@HomegrownPassion I did and I hope all is well in the garden. The tomatoes looks scrumptious! Pefect for salsa. Also what is CSA?
Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is a direct marketing model that connects farmers with consumers by having members buy shares of a farm’s harvest in advance, typically at the start of the growing season. In return, members receive a regular supply of fresh, seasonal produce — often weekly — throughout the season. I also supply beef to the CSA. Its a really great way to get fresh produce, meat, eggs and dairy right from the farm.
@HomegrownPassion Wow Katy! What a system and this is the first I have heard of it!
I use a battery powered leaf blower to shake the flowers which is ten times faster. I ‘ve been making my living growing tomatoes in high tunnels for 32 years growing them in the soil. I grow 1,000 Big Beef +, 150 Carolina Gold, 200 Tomato Berry Garden. I till in a big wind row of fresh grass clippings on each bed each spring and the plants do better every consecutive year. I never have to fruit prune, the Big Beef are huge and I need a few smaller ones to make up a 2 lb bag that we sell on the honor system here on the farm. Sorry to say , I tried Rebelski one season and my customers hated them, flattened fruit- cut off the top slice and you may be left with two slices, more orange than red interior, sour compared to Big Beef. I have a youtube channel if you want to see my tomatoes.
Wow, thank you so much for sharing such detailed and valuable information from your 32 years of experience! Your tips on the leaf blower, grass clippings, and even your thoughts on specific varieties like Rebelski are incredibly insightful. I really appreciate you taking the time to share your expertise. I will look into the Big Beef. I was planting on doing another planting later this summer to supply tomatoes this winter.
As a non-U.S. viewer, can you tell us what CSA means and explain the programme. Great video as always Katy!
Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is a direct marketing model that connects farmers with consumers by having members buy shares of a farm’s harvest in advance, typically at the start of the growing season. In return, members receive a regular supply of fresh, seasonal produce — often weekly — throughout the season. I also supply beef to the CSA. Its a really great way to get fresh produce, meat, eggs and dairy right from the farm.