Garden Doctors: Taming vines and herbs

Linda G. from Healdsburg asks: I have a small space to grow cucumbers and pumpkins, and the vines are getting out of control with all their foliage growing in all different directions. Would it be OK to do a little pruning to remove some of the foliage or will it stunt or kill the plants?

Most plants grow to a predetermined size, depending on their growth habit. They can be low and spreading, mounding, branching, or tall and upright. Weather and browsing animals can contribute to pruning and shaping.

While you can’t control the weather and stop every animal from nibbling on the plants, you can help direct your vegetable plants’ growth by limiting the size and quantity of the fruit that they produce.

Since you would like to keep a plant’s size to a certain area of your garden, you could train them to grow vertically up a trellis, stake or other type of support. This works very well with the vining type melons, cucumbers, and small squashes.

There are two ways to control the growth of vegetables: pinching and pruning. Pinching is used quite often to remove the flower buds and/or immature fruits as the plants grow. Pruning may be necessary to remove entire branches or prevent the plant from growing outside its growing area.

As the quantity of fruit they bear is reduced, they compensate by making each fruit larger. So, when a plant grows excess foliage, it compensates by reducing the number of flowers and fruit that they set. You can increase the yield from your plants by pinching off flowers and removing some leaves. Each of the remaining blossoms that set fruit will be larger than they would be had the competing flowers and foliage remained on the plant.

On vining plants like cucumber and squash, entire branching stems can be removed, leaving a single runner to train vertically on a trellis. By doing this, you will reduce the amount of space where the plant can grow by quite a bit. Redirect your plant’s energy by regularly pinching some foliage growth buds between your fingernail and thumb. This will cause the latent buds on the stem to grow, creating a denser, fuller plant.

For fruit-bearing vegetables, pinch off a third to one-half of the flowers as they appear. The remaining fruit will be much larger. After the fruit has set, pinch away any that are too close to each other, deformed or diseased, insect-bitten, or that are not getting sufficient light and air circulation. Pinch away all foliage in contact with or surrounding the fruit. For plants that have become leggy, cut growing stems back to the first or second branch to promote dense, compact growth and flower production.

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Becky D. from Windsor asks: What should I do when my herb plants start flowering? I’m not sure if I should let them flower or do I need to prune them off?

It would be a good idea to keep pinching back those flowering herbs like basil, chives, oregano, savory, and thyme, to keep the plants from flowering and going to seed. The development of seeds is very demanding on a plant so it will not grow more leaves, which is why you planted the herbs in the first place! So get out there with your pruners and either just cut the flowerheads off, like on the basil and chives, or cut a little farther back into the foliage on the oregano, savory, and thyme. Towards the end of the season, you’ll notice that the oregano’s foliage will start to look a little dried up. You can cut those stems to the ground and the plant will grow more foliage.

Dana Lozano and Gwen Kilchherr are garden consultants. Send your gardening questions to The Garden Doctors, at pdgardendoctor@gmail.com. The Garden Doctors can answer questions only through their column, which appears twice a month in the newspaper and online at pressdemocrat.com.