Tomato Planting & Growing Tips
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Tomato planting season is here and it’s the perfect time to share all my tips and tricks to creating an abundance of tomatoes this year. This is the perfect time May/June, depending on your last frost date, to plant tomato starts in the garden. I share a few very important tips to guide you to choosing the right plant, caring for them, watering and more! Three tips to get your started:
Pick a sunny location.
Know they grow tall, so think about shading your other plants when choosing location.
Plan out how to support your tomatoes before planting day!
Let’s dive into my biggest tips for growing tomatoes:
Varieties
This is the biggest thing to know when choosing your tomato plant. You can grow two types of tomatoes: determinate and indeterminate. Determinate is a bush tomato, it grows to a max height and produces all at once. You can use tomato cages for these but they can still get quite big. Indeterminate tomato is vining/climbing and has continuous production. This tomato will need support and you can grow in a tall 4-5 foot obelisk, over an arch or I like to string mine up on a trellis that is 5-7 feet high.
Here are the varieties that I like to grow in my garden:
Sweet Million (cherry tomato)
Early Girl (medium size)
Black Krim Organic (larger heirloom type)
Pozzano Organic (roma for pasta sauce)
How to plant tomatoes in the ground
This is something I wish I knew my first year… Don’t just buy/grow a tomato plant and plant it. Take off the bottom two branches and plant deep! You can plant 3-4 inches of the stem in the ground. This will help support your tomato plant after you plant. Make sure no branches or leaves are touching the soil as the leaves don’t like to get wet. I also add some worm casting and compost rich soil in the hole and around the base. You can add organic fertilizer if your soil was previously hosted by another vegetable.
How to care for tomatoes
You will remove stems and branches underneath the first set of fruit so the tomato plant puts all it’s energy into making and ripening the fruit. You will see suckers growing and you want to remove them. These are small shoots or stems that grow out of the joints where leaves attach to the main stem. When you remove it, the plant focuses it’s energy into growing the main stem and fruit. You can control the growth of the plant this way.
Watering
I also give it a good soak after planting. Always water at the base, the leaves don’t like water as they will crisp in sun. Avoid overhead watering if possible. Water every day or so after planting. I like to feel the soil with my hands and if it’s damp do not water (even if the top layer is dry). You don’t want to over water the plant. If it’s a heat wave, you may have to water 10 minutes once or twice a day with drop irrigation. If hand watering, feel the soil to see how deep the water went. We can often water for 5 minutes and think that was enough but the soil is still dry 2 inches down.
How to harvest tomatoes
If you are growing a determinate variety, you will let the tomato flower and grow and harvest when they are blush. They will usually produce fruit earlier then indeterminate varieties. You will get a few harvests close together. Indeterminate varieties you will harvest later in the season but longer harvests. I like to harvest when the tomatoes are blush and have them ripen inside the home to ensure it keeps focusing it’s energy on the new fruit. And this avoids pests or critters getting to those perfectly ripe ones. Once frost hits, your tomato plant will stop producing and you can harvest all the green tomatoes to eat or let ripen in your home.
What do to with your plants at the end of the season
Once I’ve harvested every last tomato. I cut the whole plant at the base of the soil (compost the plant) and leave the roots in the ground over winter. This becomes nutrition for the microbes in your soil over the winter. Come spring time, I pull any roots that are left in the soil before I amend. Usually it’s all been eaten and/or decomposed.
I love to grow basil and marigolds with my tomatoes as companions! If you’re curious for more information about companion planting, check out my blog here, and if you’re wanting to learn even more about gardening (especially if you’re a beginner in your first 3 years!), check out my garden e-book I created! It also makes a great gift 😉 Happy tomato growing!
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