3 Important Things To Know When Planting Tomatoes
While technically a fruit, most people consider tomato an essential part of a vegetable garden. Who can resist the delicious temptation of a tomato picked fresh from the vine?
It comes as no surprise that this fruit is a commonly grown vegetable all over the States. Funny to think that Europeans who first found out about it, considered it poisonous and it was not eaten until a century after its introduction there!
Planning to grown your own Tomatoes, then consider these three things:
Not all tomatoes are similar
First, determine what kind of space you’d want to put your plants in. Tomatoes come in two different types, determinate and indeterminate. As its name suggests, determinates have vines that grow to a determined point and stop, making them more compact and bushy.
They are sometimes listed as bush tomatoes. Indeterminate has more vines than determinates. Their vines will continue growing and will eventually need support. Determinates tend to be early, while indeterminate are a good bet for later fruit.
Obviously the determinates are better suited for small gardens, and they are also a better bet for containers. Though you could always provide a cage or trellis for indeterminate in containers.
Selecting and purchasing tomato plants
Tomatoes are easy to cultivate from seed (65� F or 18� C to germinate). Unless you wish to cultivate heirloom tomato, you might want to simply purchase the seedlings so to spare yourself the time and trouble.
Check your better garden centers and greenhouses, as they may even have starts for those more common heirloom tomatoes. I recommend not starting unless you have greenhouse space. It can be done, but unless you really want them to be your own tomatoes, it’s worth the outlay to choose those plants that you won’t need to baby-sit for two months.
Make certain that you’ll pick out healthy plants without any yellowing or speckling on leaves. If you’re not sure what tomatoes you’d want or need, checking the tag can be a big help in selecting a good tomato.
Water, soil and sun requirements
Tomatoes require ample sunlight in them. As for soil, they will grow in just about anything you throw at them. An old survivalist manual says that tomatoes maybe even grown on newspapers, just as long as you put the proper amount of fertilizers. That isn’t to say that soil amendment is a bad idea.
I am always in favor of adding compost and manure to anything but the wettest soil. They do very well when planted in containers, as soil can easily be changed or improved from year to year (raised beds are good for much the same reason).
Uniform watering is the key to nice fruit. Even watering prevents leaf-end roll, blossom end-rot and “cat-facing”, those misshapen crags and cracks on its stem end. Tomatoes are about the watering! Skimp on amendments, and fertilizers, but if you’d want good tomatoes, remember that it’s just about proper watering.