How To STOP Tomato Sun Scald Forever!

What's going on gardeners? On today's two minute garden tip, I'm going to show you what sun scald is, why it's ruining your tomatoes, and how to fix it. This is tomato sun scald. It causes severe sunburn and discoloration on the tomatoes, and once your tomatoes are affected by it, they are going to rot. They are never going to ripen properly. As you can see, this one already has some rot forming on it. These tomatoes are permanently damaged and are a total loss. As the name implies, tomato sun scald is caused by the sun scalding tomatoes. When the sun directly beats on the fruits, it causes blisters on the fruits, because contrary to popular belief, tomatoes are not a full sun species. They did not adapt to grow out in full sun and have the full sun beat on top of them. They are an understory vine, and they adapted to growing and maturing under the protection of a forest canopy. The primary reason why tomato sun scald happens is because of terrible tomato pruning advice. People have us believing we need to hack our plants to pieces because they need airflow. Tomatoes are an understory vine. They adapted to grow in places with no airflow under the protection of a forest canopy. When we remove the leaves from our plants, that removes the shading of the fruit. When we prune our tomatoes, we create all of these gaps in the plant, which then exposes the fruit to direct sunlight and causes sun scald. The number one way you prevent tomato sun scald is to not prune your plants. Allow as much foliage, as densely as possible, to protect the fruits. Dense foliage will protect our fruits from the sun scald, and we will be much more likely to have absolutely perfect fruits. But sometimes, no matter how hard we try to resist pruning and we keep our foliage as dense as possible, you'll get the odd tomato here and there that just wants to grow up into the sun and turn upside down, and you'll get blistered fruit like you see right here. So, I have learned to always grow my tomato plants undercover. Up until this point, I have always grown my tomatoes underneath 40% shade cloth because the dappled light of a shade cloth emulates a native forest canopy that tomato plants adapted to grow under, and you get much better results. You won't get the tomato leaf curl, you'll get increased rates of pollination, reduced disease and insect pressure, and as little sun scald as possible. In this case, I've installed a greenhouse tarp over my tomato plants, and that acts as a partial shade cloth because it blocks UV. So, it's the same exact principle. So, although I'm not using an actual shade cloth this year, it is still functioning as one, and that is why I have reached the beginning of July and all of my tomatoes are basically perfect. But even though I've done everything right, I've completely resisted pruning, I've covered my tomatoes to shield them from the sun, these two or three little annoying tomatoes right here decided to grow up in the air, and they have just been getting nuked by the sun that comes over top the house every morning right there, and it's been a direct beeline with no protection at all, and that's why they got the sun scald. So, in this case, you could either bag them with an organza bag to give them a little bit of protection, you could spray them with surround kale and clay as a crop protectant to keep the sun off of them, or you could even take a piece of contractor's paper or a piece of cardboard and just set it on top of them to block the sun. But that is the Unfortunately, this tomato right here is just going to be a total loss. So, by resisting pruning our tomato plants, putting a shade protective cover overhead that blocks some of the UV, and when all else fails, individually protecting any fruits that are sticking out, we can have a sun-scald-free garden. Well, almost. If you want to learn why I don't prune my tomatoes, I'll link to a video both above and down in the video description. And that's today's two-minute garden tip. If you're new to the channel, please consider subscribing and hitting the bell to receive new video notifications, and check out our Amazon storefront and spreadshop in the video description for a list of the gardening products I use and awesome custom designed apparel and other gear. Your support is greatly appreciated.