Pruning Tools

[FruitGuyMiller]

What is your favorite pruning tool? Do you use a pocket knife, micro-shears, your fingernails, or something else?

What brand and model do you use? Please link to amazon if you have a specific model you like.

Thanks!

[MrBig46]

I break suckers by thumb. It's the easiest and quickest. My tool is right thumb. It is a cheap tool and serves me more than fifty years.
Vladimír

[heirloomtomaguy]

When pruning 100's of plants kitchen shears work the best for me.
http://www.amazon.com/KitchenAid-She.../dp/B0050U240O

[Worth1]

Most of the time I just pinch them off with my thumb.
I also use a knife sometimes maybe scissors.
I dont worry one darn bit about spreading anything and have never had it happen.
If the plant is croaking I pull it.


Worth

[Gardeneer]

I also use my thumb to pinch off the unwanted suckers. But I use a gardeners' pruner to cut/clean up the leaf branches.

I always carry a small pocket knife for just in case.

Gardeneer.

[FruitGuyMiller]

Originally Posted by Worth1

I dont worry one darn bit about spreading anything and have never had it happen.

Worth

Worth,

It's funny you should mention this. Before I came back to read the responses I thought to myself I should ask if people bother with sanitizing the tools or not. You must be a mind reader!

I suspect, but can't prove, that the risk for spreading infection is a bit overblown.

[TC_Manhattan]

Originally Posted by FruitGuyMiller

I suspect, but can't prove, that the risk for spreading infection is a bit overblown.

Just wait till you have a wet season and the grey mold finds you!

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by TC_Manhattan

Just wait till you have a wet season and the grey mold finds you!

That is one thing I will cure in a heart beat.
Get rid of the plant at the first sign of infection.
They aren't people they are plants.
If I have a verity that does this to me I wont grow it anymore.
This is the reason you will never see me plant another Black Prince tomato in my garden ever again.

Worth

[Gerardo]

Pocket knife, shears, and thumb.

[Stvrob]

Machete

[habitat_gardener]

I like Fiskars pruning snips for most tasks in the veg garden
http://www2.fiskars.com/Products/Gar...p-Pruning-Snip

and for more heavy-duty jobs, either pruning shears (whichever ones I can find when I need them) or mega loppers (I have an old lopper made by Wilkinson Sword that's wonderful -- online I'm finding mostly UK sources).

Occasionally kitchen shears when I run out to get greens for dinner.

[clkeiper]

It depends on what I am pruning... tomatoes, apple trees, basil?
tomatoes, I pinch off
apple trees - felcos, ARS pruners, a corona pole pruner and or a chainsaw.
basil - hand pruners or scissors.

[FruitGuyMiller]

Thanks for the posts, folks!

I have never had grey mold. I've had septoria leaf spot, and perhaps some bacterial leaf spot (I'm not sure, may have been fungal... ?), but no grey mold.

Last spring here in Missouri was HORRIBLE. It rained for several weeks straight, nearly every day. The plants never had a chance to dry out and everything got very sick. Spraying was useless because it rained nearly every day and washed off any treatments applied. I'm really hoping this year is better.... I grow my tomatoes vertically on cattle panel to about 7 feet tall. I am going to wipe the cattle panel down with clorox wipes before planting again this year, just to decontaminate.

[FruitGuyMiller]

Originally Posted by Stvrob

Machete

[ilex]

I only prune first foot and suckers with knife.