Growing Tomatoes - Our Ten Best Tomato Growing Tips

Growing tomatoes is probably the most popular activity in vegetable gardening. Information on how to grow tomatoes is searched more than any other plant (except for growing marijuana, but that’s not quite the same activity.)

It’s actually pretty easy to grow tomatoes, and the tomatoes you get from the garden are much better than anything you will find at the grocery store. They don’t take up much room, and can be grown in a wide range of places. So here are some of our best tomato growing tips.

Prepare the soil - Tomatoes do well in a well drained soil with lots of organic matter. Work in some compost, but make sure it’s fairly mature. Organic matter that is still decomposing will rob nitrogen from soil, and tomatoes are heavy feeders. The soil pH should be around 6 to 7. If you have poor drainage in your soil, you might want to think about a raised garden bed or even to use the square foot gardening approach to building a tomato bed.

Plant at the Right Time - Tomatoes are very easily damaged by frost, so plant them after the danger of frost has passed. Since they are so susceptible to frost, they are usually planted as seedlings. If there is a late frost, be sure to cover them well, if they are still not too tall, you can use plastic milk jugs that have been cut off. Some years we’ve used Wall o Waters with great success, as the thermal mass of the water can actually keep the tomatoes safe during a deep freeze for a day or so. If you decide to start your own tomato plants indoors, you should start them about 6 weeks ahead of when you expect to be planting them. My experience is to start some more about 1-2 weeks later. You may find you end up discarding them or giving them away, but if you get that late freeze that kills of the first round of seedlings, without the backup you are locked into the remnants at the nursery.

Plant Tomatoes in the Right Place - The outside garden is the usual place that people want to grow tomatoes. But tomatoes do well in a variety of places. There are a number of ways to grow tomatoes in containers. Also very popular are hanging tomato planters, and the Topsy Turvy Upside Down tomato planter is inexpensive and very effective. Using a hanging planter lets you create the ideal soil, can eliminate staking, controls soil borne pests, and you don’t have to bend or stoop to tend to your plants. Plus, you can put them anywhere you want (including the garage during a freeze.)

Pick the Right Varieties - This is more important than most imagine. Many folks just wander down to Home Depot or Lowes and think that they must be carrying the best varieties for your area. More often than not this is not the case. A local nursery will do a better job, or start your own seedlings at home. Climate is a big factor, for example, tomatoes often won’t set fruit above 90 F, although smaller varieties will do so at hotter temperatures.

You also need to understand if the variety you chose is a determinant or indeterminate. Determinant will tend to grow to a specific size, and then stop, and often yield most of their fruit over a short period of time. Conversely, indeterminate plants will continue to grow over the season, and will bear fruit over a longer period of time.

An example, for Texas where the spring cool season is short, a great choice is actually an indeterminate cherry tomato. It will yield fruit longer in the spring, since the smaller fruit will handle the heat better. And if the plant is watered and pruned over the hot summer months, in the cooler months you will see a tremendous harvest of the cherry tomatoes because the vines have been growing all summer, just not setting fruit in the heat. But trying to grow the larger varieties like Better Girl can just be an exercise in frustration. So, get to know the varieties for your area, and you’ll be rewarded for your efforts.

Here are the rest of our tomato growing tips, including watering, fertilization, planting, mulching and more to help give you your best tomatoes yet.