Garden Tomatoes

So you have gone through the trouble to plant a garden to be proud of. You have planned it, collected the proper supplies, and sown your seeds. You are all done now, right? Wrong! You have to help that organic garden thrive.

There are five simple things that most new gardeners overlook when they plant their first garden. Once everything is planted, the real care begins. You have to tend your garden well in order to produce the best results.

Tip #1: Water your garden. Watering is the number one responsibility you have when it comes to a garden. The best practice is to get into a routine and water consistently every day at about the same time. Don’t let a rain fall get you off track, you still have to water the next day.

Tip #2: Water in the morning. I know this goes hand in hand with number one, but this one is equally important. If you water in the afternoon, the heat from the sun can evaporate the water before your plants have fed. It is best to water prior to 10 am when possible.

Tip #3: Weed your garden. It sounds like a no-brainer, but weeds are a vampire to your garden. They suck the nutrients and the water out of the soil. You have to get out there every day and pull weeds before they are allowed to take root. Dig them out when possible to remove all traces.

Tip #4: Rid yourself of pests. Since you are growing an organic garden, over the counter pesticides are a no-go. You can make your own homemade pesticide though that will assist you if your garden is being overrun. Mix two teaspoons of dish soap with one cup of vegetable oil. Add a couple of teaspoons of this to a spray bottle with water in it. Then spray the heavily infected areas with this solution to control pests.

Tip #5: Care for your spot all year round. If you let the garden just be overrun with weeds, leaves, etc in the off season, you are asking for trouble. Even if you are just seasonally growing, you should keep that patch of earth clean. Caring for your garden area all year round will lead to a more bountiful, disease free harvest the next season.

Armed with these 5 tips and a “can do” attitude you are well on your way to a healthy organic garden.

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.