Tomatoes are Easy to Grow IMO

If you live in a location with relatively warm to hot summers, tomatoes should be easy to grow if you do a few simple things to ensure success. As always make sure you start with good soil and good drainage. Another critical component to success with tomatoes is full sun. I have some of my tomatoes in a shadier section in the garden this year that receives approximately six hours of sun and they are doing okay but 8-10 hours is preferable. When the ground is fully warm, mulch your plants to retain moisture and help prevent blight on your tomato leaves. I prefer organic matter and use mainly leaf mold in my garden.

When you put tomatoes in the ground plant them deep. If you have tall plants I recommend breaking off the lower leaves and burying not only the root system but a portion of the stem as well. If you have a tall plant and will be using a stake as a support system, it works well to dig an elongated hole almost like a trench rather than a super deep hole. Lay the root bulb and bottom portion of the stem into the trench and cover allowing only the top third of your plant to be above ground. The stem of the tomato plant that you bury in the ground will develop into a well established root system and help ensure a healthy plant. I always have my stakes in the ground first when I do this so the top of the plant above ground has something to lean against since most of the plant is lying down in the hole. The stem will bend to a degree but be careful not to snap it. If you are using cages or your plants are not very tall, just dig a regular hole for your plant but still make sure to put it in deep relative to the size of the plant.

As with peppers and eggplants, it helps if the ground is fully heated before planting tomatoes. If you are trying to get a jump in the spring you may want to cover your bed with clear plastic to heat up the soil. I also back fill the hole with the surface soil which is warmer than the soil removed from the hole.

My secret ingredient for tomatoes is Epson salt. I put a handful in the hole when planting the tomato and it provides enough potassium to feed my plant all summer. I find this works well with peppers and eggplant also. As is the case with beans, make sure your soil is not too rich in nitrogen or you get all plant and little in the way of fruit.

I have grown a number of different varieties over the years, but recently I have narrowed it down to three – early girls, grape tomatoes, and roma (or plum) tomatoes. The romas I freeze and use primarily for cooking. The early girls and grape tomatoes we use mostly for salads but I do freeze the extra early girls as well.

The reason I grow early girls is strictly for their long harvest season. This year I started picking the third week of June and if the fall is not too cool and wet I will keep the plants in the ground until October and continue to eat the in-house ripened tomatoes until the end of November. The bigger softer tomatoes have a good taste to them but they ripen later and do not hold up during the cool nights in the autumn so the harvesting period is much shorter. This why I have stopped growing them.

Here are my early girls as of last week.

The early girls like to grow straight up so rather than pinching off all the suckers I begin topping in early June and let some of the suckers continue to grow. You may be able to see my pruning technique from these pictures.

I try and keep 4-6 stems growing up the stake to keep the plant a little bushy and prevent them from getting too tall too early. They generally grow 9 or 10 feet high anyway and I need to use a step ladder by late July to continue tying them to the stake. By August I’m climbing the step ladder to pick. I only grow three early girls but the amount of tomatoes I have been harvesting from these plants over the years is incredible. I never tested it but I believe it’s the Epson salts. I will follow-up with harvest pictures and plant pictures later in the summer.

Note: Most larger tomatoes like beefsteak will not grow tall the way early girls do so it is better to pinch the suckers with them so you get the bigger tomatoes.

Romas I find do better in cages. They have a tendency to grow bushy and not straight up. I pinch of a few suckers in the beginning but then just let them grow keeping them contained to the cage.

I usually begin harvesting in late July for about four weeks and then sometimes get a small second harvest from them in late summer or fall. I bring them inside to finish ripening before putting them into the freezer. Here is my freezer a few years ago in September.

I do my grape tomato in a cage also and do a lot of topping with this plant also to try and keep it somewhat contained. This is just beginning to produce.

I have more to share on tomatoes as they grow and mature but that’s all for now. I hope you enjoyed my article. Please upvote and resteem.