important to plan ahead.

GROWING-BIG-WITH-STEEMIT_grow-pro-grows-part2cover.jpg
Welcome Back! Coming back for more - I love it! [high five]
This is a continuation of the part 1: Grow & Tell w/ @grow-pro • How to Increase Your Tomato Yield Using Steemit • [part 1] • #growandtell

If part 1 didn't open your eyes to the possibility of Steemit offering ways to enhance your tomato yield, then allow me to knock those socks off your feet!

Stick with me through this and I will make it painless, I promise! This will be a media-rich and I will include some great resources for gardeners at the foot of this article. The goal is to get more people growing more food.

Part 2 will be more visual media to enhance the tips shared in Part 1

steem_tree_divider-3.png

Let's get right to it!

YOU WILL BE GROWING BIGGER & BETTER THIS YEAR ON STEEMIT & IN THE GARDEN

The best part about Steemit gardening is that we are a network of knowledge. You can ask questions in the comments, add photos to get advice or diagnosis of plant issues, find resources on the web that others have already sifted and found - the possibilities go on. The point is that if you stick around here and engage with the gardening community, wonderful results come from it.

Not only can we meet fellow gardeners and homesteaders, trade advice and share knowledge but we can reward one another in the process. A few nice votes can earn you enough to fund your garden seeds and materials, sharing your passion can encourage more people to garden, and you can see positive results unfold before your eyes.

grow-big-grow-home-with-grow-pro.jpg

You might even find yourself getting a #curie nomination and a nice vote from @curie if your content is high-quality. Just ask @thelaundrylady, her wonderful post this week, Garden Journal (April, 2018) - Showcasing Garden Photos, which is a fine example of how a post can really change your trajectory on this platform. That great article fetched about $111 in votes, which is SBD, not dollar value (actual USD value roughly $350 - not bad, right?!). You can compare that to how much you can potentially earn on Facebook or Twitter 😋 /nada, zip, zilch, zero (and they make billions of $). Do you feel that Steemit love growing? I do. But... Let's dig right into PART 2!

STEEM_divide_ALT3.png

Here are some visuals to enhance the tips shared in part 1

Leave-the-leaf---tomato-growing-tip-1.jpg

• Leave some leaves! Tomatoes like the shade provided by the foliage, so be sure to leave some. Trimming too much foliage increases sun scold and also reduces the energy intake. Leaves are photon-collectors, so think of them as solar panels AND with the utility of providing shade for the precious fruits. Nitrogen-rich soil creates big leaf, but be sure you are keeping Phosphorous and Potash levels a bit higher. Too much nitrogen will inhibit root growth and also reduce flowers (and yield) of the crop. You want a plant with large leaves, but prolific flowering as well. It's important to balance the nutrients in your soil if your soil has an imbalance. It's always wise to test soil pH and NPK values if you are comfortable with soil testing.

The leaf shown above is of an heirloom tomato called 'Brandywine (Pink)', Most often referred to as just Brandywine because the savvy tomato growers know that the original Brandywine tomato was pink and therefore the (pink) is redundant. This variety grows massive tomatoes and has a very thick stem. The average plant of this variety, last year, yielded about 40 lbs. of tomatoes in a season. The cover image is a Brandywine (average size: 1-3 lbs per tomato).

Here's a quick look at what Brandywine can do:
brandywine-w-grow-pro.jpg

It's a strong, prolific producer in our garden. Massive tomatoes held by massive stems that can hold some serious weight and taking the abuse of the weather. This indeterminate variety produces long into late fall and has a harvest time of ~85-90 days. If you like large, flavorful beefsteak tomatoes then try the Brandywine. They will require a bit more care and attention due to the massive size of the tomatoes - which leads me to my next tip below!

• Support is Vital! Just like it is here on Steemit, it's equally vital to the plants that will be holding much more weight than an average tomato plant. The average for a single tomato plant yield in a home garden is about 10 pounds/4.5 kilos (from my own personal gathering of data). More experienced commercial growers can fetch 75-90 lbs (34-41 kilos) with intensive methods. You will need some serious support to hold that sort of weight and a typical tomato cage is not going to work. I have had them bend and fall over with the entire crop, so it is important to plan ahead.

Example of what happens without proper support:

support-is-vital---grow-pro.jpg

Lesson Learned! I make custom cages that can hold the weight without worry

Using a mixture of tomato cages, concrete rebar, cattle fencing, and U-channel posts (like street signs), I am able to keep the weight under control. It requires some mighty strong materials to do it, so do not skimp