If your tomato seedlings do become leggy, then all isn't lost. Unlike plants such as cauliflower, tomato seedlings can be rescued because they grow roots from the main stem. Before transplanting, remove the bottom few leaves and then plant the seedling more deeply than normal in the new container.
You can keep tomato plants from growing too tall by regularly pruning them, providing support such as stakes or cages, and ensuring they receive adequate sunlight and nutrients to encourage healthy growth without excessive stretching.
You've solved the light problem, but is there any way to tame the legginess once it's already happened? Yes—you can cut leggy plants back to encourage new stems to sprout, restoring your plants to lushness.
Many "leggy" indoor plants can easily be made bushier by cutting back the long stems and encouraging shoots at the base of the plant. The best time is early spring just before new growth begins.
The most common cause of leggy seedlings is lack of strong, overhead lighting. Tomato plants become long and spindly when they are reaching for the light. If the light only comes from one direction, then your seedlings not only become leggy, but will also lean towards the light.
Do You Want Bigger Tomatoes or More Tomatoes? Here's the deal: If you prune the suckers, you'll get bigger tomatoes. If you don't prune the suckers, you'll get smaller tomatoes—but a lot of them.
Is it possible to overcome tomato wilt? The answer to this is, if it's caused by an environmental factor – yes, you can recover your plant. However, if the plant is wilting because of a pathogen, it is unfortunately, almost always necessary to uproot and destroy the plant.
You can cut the stem down to the height you prefer and replant it. Just make sure to give the stem a few days, or even a week, to scab over before you put it back into the soil with its lower stature. You can also control naturally leggy plants by rotating them every few weeks.
Determinate, or bush tomatoes, tend to be smaller and more manageable. Most tomato pruning involves removing suckers -- the shoots that form in the axils where side branches meet the stem. Remove suckers when they're small by pinching them off with your hand or snipping them with pruners.
Cutting the tomato plants
The plants grow quite tall in summer and I often notice bunches of green tomatoes that I know won't ripen in time. That's when I cut the top off the tomato plants. This is a great way to keep the plant from growing even larger and instead ripening the fruits.
Plants are usually ready to prune once they reach 12 to 18 inches in height.
Topping forces the energy from the plant into the remaining fruit and can hasten ripening. Removing the growing tip by topping also limits the plant's final size, which can be important for larger varieties. Greenhouse tomato growers will top plants when they reach the top of the trellis.
If leggy tomato seedlings do occur, they can often be saved by transplanting them into deeper soil, burying the stem, or providing additional light or support.
If tomatoes are not pruned early enough in their growth, they will grow tall with lots of leaves and flowers at the top, but no growth on the lower stems.
The tall and skinny plant is primarily due to a lack of light supply.
Leggy seedlings are a common problem when starting seeds in late winter and early spring. The good news is that these spindly plants can often recover and become lush green crops.
Space in-ground holes 18 inches apart for most peppers; some of the larger bells may need 24 inches. Step 2: Gently remove the plant from its pot. Step 3: Set the plant in the hole so that the top of the root-ball is level with the ground surface. Do not plant deeply like tomatoes, or the plants may rot.
The cuttings will begin growing roots from the nodes within a week, and the cuttings will be ready to plant in pots within 3 weeks! Sometimes some cuttings are slower, though, so just keep those in water until the roots are about as long as the cutting itself.