Garden Tomatoes

Tips on growing tomatoes and gardening from Dave’s Garden.

I’m planning to use container gardening to grow tomatoes this summer. Do they have to be outside at a certain point to be pollinated? Or can I keep them inside in a sunny spot and have them grow fine?

Because of the recession many people have decided to grow their own fruits and vegetables at home. Growing your tomatoes can save you money, provide a steady supply of chemical, free fruit and give you a little exercise to boot. Tomatoes will not grow by themselves. They need special care and attention before and during the growing process. Here are some guidelines to follow when growing tomatoes.

Planting tomatoes:

Plant the tomatoes deep in the ground with only the top leaves sticking up. This will allow the plant to be hardier and the roots will grow on the stem and branch out allowing the growing tomato to establish itself much easier.  Space the plants two to four feet apart for easy access to the growing tomatoes. This spacing is especially helpful when caring and harvesting the fruit. Stake the toms when first planted to avoid damage to the roots and plant.

General care for growing tomatoes:

Growing tomatoes like fertilizer that is richer in phosphorous and potassium than nitrogen. A food mixture of 5-10-10 would work best for the plant. Mix the fertilizer into the soil about two weeks before planting. Water regularly and never allow the ground to dry out. Instead of a light watering several times a week, a good a good soak once a week using enough water to penetrate about 6 inches below the soil is best.

Harvesting:

When growing tomatoes keep in mind they are sun-loving plants. The time it takes to for them to ripen depends on the variety you have chosen. There are types that take ninety days to reach full maturity. A tomato is ripe when it is the color of the variety you have chosen to grow. The color should be consistent throughout the fruit.

Pests and Disease:

It is safe to say you’ll experience garden pests. The best you can do is keep your eyes open and inspect your plant regularly. Once you have identified a pest problem a solution can be found at a local gardening store.

Tomatoes, although technically short-lived perennials, are treated as annuals and raised from seed each year. They are sub-tropical plants that require a consistent temperature of at least 55ºF in order to germinate successfully, but a temperature of 70ºF will produce much quicker emergence and is generally preferred. Given warmth, good light and a damp friable growing medium tomatoes are very easy to raise from seed.

For most gardeners, even those that live in warmer districts where tomatoes are cultivated outdoors from their very early stages of growth, it is usual to start the seeds off in pans or flats of compost under controlled conditions. Tomatoes can be sown directly into the open ground, where the climate and soil conditions are suitable, but much better establishment of better quality plants always results from controlled seed raising and growing the seedlings during their initial stages of growth in independent modules or pots. Transplanting is easier and establishment is rapid.

As tomato seeds are large enough to handle individually, it is best to space them out on the surface of the prepared compost so that when they germinate they do not crowd each other. Also when they are pricked out there is no undue disturbance of the fragile root systems through them having become entangled with each other. A properly formulated seed compost is essential. A sterile medium of a texture and quality that will offer the best start for the germinating seeds.

There are a number of different composts available, but for the hobby gardener a good soil-based seed compost is to be preferred to a soil-less one. Soil-based composts, although generally slower to warm-up, and often slightly impairing the speed of seed germination, usually yield the finest and strongest plants, especially for planting directly into the garden outdoors.

Plants that have been raised in a soil-less compost, which almost always comprises a high proportion of friable peat, often take time to adapt their roots to the more hostile and less forgiving medium of natural garden soil when planted in their permanent positions. Sometimes a check in growth occurs while the roots adapt, resulting in an impairment in the plant’s development.

Soil-based composts also overcome the problem, commonly encountered with tomato seedlings raised in a soil-less medium, of the seed coat sticking the two seed leaves together, often making them inseparable without causing damage. The seed coat is generally detached by the coarser soil-based medium as the seedlings emerge.

Once the seedlings have their two seed leaves fully expanded they should be pricked out, ideally into individual modules or small pots, although they can spend two or three weeks pricked out into flats in order to save space when this is necessary. Like all seedlings, tomatoes that are raised in this manner are vulnerable to damping off disease. This causes the seedlings to rot at the base of the stem and collapse. The routine use of a fungicidal treatment is to be recommended.

Now that your seedlings are big enough to be planted outside they need to be hardened off.  This is done by bringing them outdoors gradually.  The first day leave them NOT in direct sunlight for about an hour.  2nd day expose to a little sun for about one hour keeping in mind that you need to keep the soil moist to help them acclimate.  Start adding an hour a day until they are up to a full day in the sun. 

Space your tomatoes approx 25” to 30” inches apart and dig that hole nice and deep burying them up to the first set of leaves.  This will insure a deep strong root system.  To help with the shock of transplanting more quickly I like to mix two parts water with on part sifted compost.  Then I mix together two tablespoons each of fish meal and cottonseed meal.  I work both mixtures into the soil at the bottom of the hole. You can even add a crushed up egg shell for extra calcium.  

After planting your tomatoes they should be mulched once the soil has warmed.  Mulching helps keep the soil moist and helps keep the fruit from sitting directly on the ground.  Mulch also acts as a slow release fertilizer and helps keep down the weeds.

Great mulch contains lawn clippings, fall leaves that have been shredded down with the lawn mower or shredder, egg shells, coffee grounds, sawdust, wood chips etc. 

Okay now you’ve given your garden everything you know to do….So why are the leaves wilting at the bottom of my plant?  Does my tomato plant have a disease?  Here’s a couple easy organic fixes for many tomato plant diseases (like early and late blight diseases): I prune off the affected leaves and destroy them (you might have to do this every couple of days until under control).  Then I alternate a copper based fungicide one week and a sulfur based spay the next. There are plenty of websites to find good fungicides but I like www.YardLover.com because they specialize in organic products. 

Another good tip is to water your plants in the mornings versus evenings…this give the plants time for the sun to dry them off.  

Gardening is supposed to be nice and relaxing… so let’s go find a nice comfortable lawn chair and watch those tomatoes grow.

Happy Gardening!

Penny

www.PennysTomatoes.com