Home Grown Tomatoes You Just Can't Beat Their Taste: Some Basic Tomato Gardening Tips

If you have not planted tomatoes this year, it is not too late as you should find some reduced priced plants this week at your garden centers or green houses- - - but I would not wait too much longer.

So enjoy your Father’s Day, but come Monday stick some plants in the garden.

One year, I decided not to plant a vegetable garden, and after going to a vegetable stand and purchasing locally grown tomatoes, I made a commitment to plant some tomatoes each year. As most of us know, tomatoes coming out of the garden provide a taste that green house tomatoes can never rival!
　
So, here are some basics tips for growing tomatoes even if you are running late.
　
This is a tip that most of us find difficult to follow---but it does work:

• Bury tomato plants deeper than they come in the pot, all the way up to a few top leaves. Tomatoes are able to develop roots all along their stems. You can either dig a deeper hole or simply dig a shallow tunnel and lay the plant sideways. It will straighten up and grow toward the sun.

Other tips:
　

• Fungus problems can ruin your tomatoes. A very hot and wet season or a very wet and cool season can often times stimulate tomato fungal problems as evidenced by browning shriveling leaves. To help reduce this problem, once the tomato plants are about 3' tall, remove the leaves from the bottom 1' of stem. These are usually the first leaves to develop fungus problems that can spread up into the plant. The lower leaves get the least amount of sun and soil born pathogens can be unintentionally splashed up onto them.

• This particular tip, I do not follow only because I have over twenty plants and just do not have the time however, pinching and removing suckers that develop in the crotch joint of two branches will help produce a better yield of tomatoes. These suckers won’t bear fruit and will just take energy away from the rest of the plant. (I also don’t pinch suckers, because in all likelihood farmers who grow tomatoes in the fields most definitely would not have the time or manpower to do so!)

• I tend to allow nature to handle the watering----however, provide water deeply and regularly while the plants are developing. Irregular watering, leads to blossom end rot and fruit cracking. Once the fruit begins to ripen, lessening the water will coax the plant into concentrating its sugars. Don’t withhold water so much that the plants wilt and become stressed, as they will drop their blossoms and possibly their fruit. Mulching with grass clippings or straw around the plants can help conserve water loss as well as reduce weeds

• If you are running late in planting, you will probably select the plants, which are still available, however, next year with careful planning, determine if you want determinate or indeterminate varieties of plants. Determinate varieties tend to set and ripen their fruit all at one time, making a large quantity available when you’re ready to make sauce as with the case of Roma tomatoes. Indeterminate varieties produce tomatoes throughout the summer and with determinate varieties should you wish, you can get earlier fruit setting by pinching off the tips of the main stems in early summer.

If you never planted tomatoes before and this is your first year, most likely you will have good results, however, soil preparation is important so here are some basic tips for next year:
　

• Tomatoes grow in neutral soils with a pH between 6.5 and 7.0. The soil pH indicates the acidity of the soil and can be quickly tested with a do-it-yourself kit from a garden center. Soils may need agricultural lime amendment to bring the bed into the proper pH range. Apply the amount of lime recommended by the test results. It's preferable to add the lime the fall before planting so it has time to become active in the soil, but you can apply it as late as two weeks before you plant. There are people who never test their soil and just habitually add lime to the soils. In Ohio, most soils are generally acidic and adding lime does help.

• Very important to note that tomatoes prefer well-drained soils. Take the time to improve your soils by adding compost or peat moss. A well-composted soil provides organic matter to poorer soils, helps aeration, improves excess water drainage and helps ensure proper moisture retention.

• You can grow tomatoes using organic fertilizers if you wish. I use chemical fertilizers sparingly (see my previous blogs on fertilizing). Fertilizer should be added to the soil prior to planting to ensure there are enough nutrients for the tomatoes to grow well.

A soil test helps determine the exact type and rate of fertilization necessary for your garden site. If you don't perform a test prior to planting, apply 2 lbs. of a general-purpose 5-10-5-analysis fertilizer per 100 square feet of garden. Fertilizers should be replenished throughout the season particularly a second application at the same rate used at planting applied once the fruits begin forming.