Pruning Cherry Tomato Plants

Today, I had to prune my Cherry Tomato plants.  

The plants had "escaped" the Texas Tomato Cages and were sprawling

 everywhere.  Without the support of the Texas Tomato Cages, I know that eventually the stems would collapse from the weight of the Cherry Tomatoes and fall to the ground.  

This would create an even bigger mess.

The picture on the right shows a Sun Sugar Cherry Tomato plant spreading past the Texas Tomato Cage and hanging over the side of the Raised Bed.

This picture shows a close-up of  the same Sun Sugar plant.  You can see the stem almost touching the ground.

The picture on the right shows how far out the stems of the Cherry Tomato plant stick out from the Texas Tomato Cage.  This stem would have definitely collapse if I did not prune it off.

I soaked the pruning shears in a mixture of Listerine and water for an hour to sterilize it.  After every cut, I dipped the shears into the liquid mixture so that I do not transfer any disease from one Cherry Tomato plant to another.

When I was done pruning the Sun Sugar Cherry Tomato plant, I found a couple of ripe Cherry Tomatoes.  They were hidden by all of the foilage .  

There are a lot of green Cherry Tomatoes, but these are my first ripe Cherry Tomatoes this season.  

This is the earliest that I have ever had Cherry Tomatoes.  Last year I did not have any ripe Cherry Tomatoes until late June.