Pruning Tomatoes

This spring I have started a garden. It is as if a switch has gone off in my brain the moment I turned 30, and now I desire to plant things, water them, and watch them grow. I am a total amateur, ignorant of the entirety of it. I now have a few tomato plants growing outside, some zucchini already sprawling out. I have one bead dedicated to cantaloupe; but my peppers are still inside waiting to get a little bigger before I transplant them. We will see how it goes on my first year, maybe we will get some yield? I have learned this much: never set the bar high on the outset.

As a novice I am at the mercy of others. I watch some youtube videos when I can, and in doing so I learned you are supposed to prune your tomato plants. There are strategies and a world of opinions on the topic, but apparently there are branches that grow at 45 degree angles called suckers, which in most instances, should be snipped. The video said these suckers block out the sun from other productive leaves and restrict airflow through the plant. It is not uncommon for unpruned tomato plants to grow leafy and full, yet produce a minimal amount of tomatoes. I think this is exactly thing happened to my mother-in-law’s pair of tomato plants last year. The plants were healthy, green, and doing as well as can be—yet she got maybe 3 tomatoes out of it. 

What was the point of that?

I could not help but think this a rich Spiritual analogy. Christ tells us in one of the most pregnant passages in the Bible:

1 I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

5 I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 

John 15:1-6 (NIV)

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Though gardening can be a hobby, the point of planting and husbanding a garden is not recreation for recreations sake. The point of it is the fruit. The output. It does us no good to have plants full and healthy with minimal output. The point from the beginning has always been the yield. And so with us, the point is the fruit. The point is what we produce. 

We must grow wary when we find ourselves, like my mother-in-law’s tomato plants, living large, looking around thinking to ourselves, “this is the life!” Some seasons we too grow bushy as we stretch out ourselves in the picture of comfort and health. “Isn’t this nice.” “What a great plant.” The church in the west has in many ways grown like this plant. But our Gardener may observe the leaves are disproportionate to the fruit. The goal is not a green vine but a fruitful one. And as comfort is opposed to production, so the sheers must come. Whack!

He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.

We do not like this pruning part. We were enjoying ourselves before, but that excess must go and it is time to get back on mission. Wack. Before we were thinking: “Look at how these investments are rolling, I wonder what I could get myself with this?” Wack. “All this free time is nice, I can finally enjoy some real entertainment.” Wack. And thus the pruning process refocuses us on our mission, reorients us towards our purpose. Take away the dross and the silver will emerge.

Without that cushion we can get back to work. We pray now because once again we need to pray. We seek God again because we are desperate yet again. We serve because we can again see clearly what God has put in our heart. Difficult as the pruning is, all of it is a mercy for it works in us what is precious to our Father: fruit.

None of it is comfortable, but the fruit comes; and the fruit is the point. The product is everything. The harvest is coming and substantive fruit must be found on our branches.

Good talk and public professions avail nothing in the absence of fruit. In The Pilgrim’s Progress the pilgrims discuss the case of one named Talkative: 

“Hearing is but as the sowing of the seed; talking is not sufficient to prove that fruit is indeed in the heart and life; and let us assure ourselves, that at the day of doom men shall be judged according to their fruits. It will not be said then, Did you believe? but, Were you doers, or talkers only? and accordingly shall they be judged. The end of the world is compared to our harvest; and you know men at harvest regard nothing but fruit. Not that anything can be accepted that is not of faith, but I speak this to show you how insignificant the profession of Talkative will be at that day.”

Indeed, “men at harvest regard nothing but fruit,” so the question is are we fruitful? Are we productive? Is the entirety of the plant working for this sole aim of producing something that will abide forever? Or have we forgotten the point: Have we grown bloated and fat, receiving a torrent of blessings but giving back paltry returns? 

Comfort is opposed to production. Too many leaves constricts the output. May we then, each seek God that He will do exactly what is necessary to each of us for the maximum value for his kingdom. Take away what needs to be taken away; thin us where we need thinning, do whatever it takes that we may be found good and faithful at the end.