Growing tomatoes is often the impetus for starting a vegetable garden, and every tomato lover dreams of growing the ultimate tomato: firm but juicy, sweet but tangy, aromatic, and blemish-free. Perfection.
Unfortunately, few vegetables are prone to more problems than tomatoes. The trick to growing great-tasting tomatoes is to choose the best varieties, start the plants off right, and control problems before they happen. Start here with some time-tested tomato growing tips to ensure your tomato bragging rights this year.
Tomatoes are the ultimate backyard crop, and growing them is easier than you might think. These tomato growing tips should help you to take care of your most delicious plants.
Is there anything better than a fully ripe tomato eaten while it’s still warm from the garden? Tomatoes annually rank as North America’s number one home garden crop. No vegetable has received more attention from plant breeders and seed savers, which gives us lots of varieties to choose from. After much consideration, you probably have narrowed down your choices and even planted your tomatoes.
Choose The Perfect Location
Choose your sunniest garden spot, because tomatoes soak up sunshine just like water. Aim for seven hours of sunshine a day. Give them room to grow, too, planting seedlings 30 to 48 inches apart, with rows set 48 inches apart. This will let light into the lower portions of the mature plants and improve airflow.
Prepare the Soil
Tomatoes thrive in rich, well-draining, slightly acidic soil with a pH of 6.5 to 6.8. To determine pH, pick up a soil tester from the Garden Center or your local Cooperative Extension Service. If the soil is too acidic, add dolomite lime. If it’s too alkaline, add sulfur or composted organic matter.
Choose When To Plant The Tomatoes
Well, tomatoes grow better when the weather is all frosty. Don’t worry; it won’t do anything to the fruit as well. So, getting it the right amount of rain will be a great idea. That way, you don’t have to water them again and again. However, make sure that the rain isn’t too much as well. You don’t want your tomatoes to rot now, do you? Taking proper care regarding the time to plant is important when it comes to the tomatoes.
Pruning Tomato Plants
Pruned plants bear earlier and have larger tomatoes, but they also have fewer of them. Over pruning can cause sunscald—a yellow sunburned patch that eventually blisters. Unpruned plants yield about twice as much fruit as pruned ones do, but it will take longer for the fruit to ripen.
Note: You do not want to prune determinate varieties or you will have only a few fruit clusters. Since determinates bear fruit only on the ends of their branches, never clip them off, or you won’t get any fruit at all!
Pruning also affects flavor. The more foliage a plant has, the more photosynthesis is taking place, which produces more sugars in the fruit. The excess foliage shades the fruit and insulates it from the summer heat, making it ripen more slowly and improving the taste. Of course, if the foliage on your plants is so thick that no fresh air can reach the center of the plant, then, by all means, pinch off a few suckers. If your indeterminates are reaching for the stars, you can top them above the highest blossoms to keep them in bounds and encourage green fruit to ripen.
Plant Deeply
Tomatoes will root along their stems. With leggy transplants, dig a trench and lay the stem sideways, bending gently upward. Snip or pinch off the lower branches and cover with soil up to the first set of leaves. This extra root growth will produce a stronger, more robust plant.
Water Regularly
Water deeply and regularly while the fruits are developing. Irregular watering—missing a week and trying to make up for it—leads to blossom end rot (a calcium deficiency) and cracking and splitting. The rule of thumb is to ensure your plants get at least 1 inch of water per week, but during hot, dry spells, they may need more. If your plants start to look wilted for most of the day, give them a drink.
After the fruit begins to ripen, you can ease up on the watering. Lessening the water will coax the plant into concentrating its sugars, for better flavor. Use your judgment. Don’t withhold water so much that the plants continually wilt and become stressed or they will drop their blossoms and possibly their fruit.
Keep Them Away From Pests
We humans are not the only ones that love tomatoes. There are several insects as well that love the juicy treat. Be careful when you are growing cherry tomatoes in pots, they might get infected easily with the insects and pest. This will make all your efforts go in vain. Also, use the soil that has no pests and bacteria in it. That way your tomatoes will be safe.