Cleaning out old tomato plants properly helps prevent plant diseases and pests, while maximizing your harvest.
Step 1: Prune to help tomatoes ripen faster.
Step 2: Harvest tomatoes before frost hits.
Credit:Blaine Moats
When frost is expected, head out into your garden and pick any tomatoes left on your plants.
If you want tosave tomato seeds, this is a great time to do it.
Step 3: Remove dead plants.
For easier removal, start pulling old tomato plants when they turn brown with frost.
As long as the ground isnt frozen, tomatoes should be relatively easy to pull by hand.
Step 4: Rake away debris.
After pulling up your tomato plants, place the plants to the side and grab your rake.
While youre at it,pull up any weedsthat were hiding beneath your tomato plants too!.
Step 5: Destroy old plants.
Step 6: Ready your beds for spring.
Once your tomato plants are out of your garden, its time to prep your empty beds for spring.
If yourtomatoes suffered from blightor other plant diseases during the growing season, consider solarizing your soil next year.
Soil solarization can kill many plant pathogens, including some types of blight and wilt.
Green tomatoes can ripen well off the plant as long as they were light green when you picked them.
In fact, you’re able to ripen and use green tomatoes in a few different ways.
