The Secret To Successful Tomato Gardening
Tomatoes are in my opinion the best fruit vegetable there is. Cherry tomatoes with their sweet and tangy taste can be eaten whole. As they are small in size you can just pop them in your mouth. Tomatoes give salads a dash of red color. Pasta and pizza are made even tastier with fresh tomato sauce poured over them. And these are just some of the benefits you will get from tomato gardening.
Tomatoes come in various shapes, sizes and colors but there are really just two kinds. One type is called the Determinates and the other the Indeterminates. Determinate tomatoes are vine growing that stop when they reach a certain point.
These tomatoes have early producing fruit that grow on a small compact vine. They are perfect for growing in containers or small spaces.
Determinates grow best when spaced 1 to 2 feet apart. The rows need 4 feet between them. If you want to plant some other vegetables around the tomato plants, you will need to add a little extra room in the rows.
Indeterminate tomatoes continue growing and therefore will need support from cages or trellises. The cages should be about 3 feet apart. You can train these tomatoes to climb the trellis once they have attached themselves. The weight of the tomato plant could cause it to want to fall over so it may be beneficial to tie the vines to support the weight.
You can start your tomato gardening with seeds or starter plants brought from nurseries. The best new tomato plants are those without any yellow speckling on their leaves. The other thing to check is to make sure that your plant roots are not coming out of the containers bottom. The root’s growth can tell if your plant will grow successfully or if it will be stressed out and produce a poor harvest.
The best time to start tomato gardening is when all of the other trees in your garden are fully in leaf. By this time the season will be warm and your acclimatized tomato plants will receive about 8 hours or more of life giving sunlight. The roots of the tomatoes should be fully embedded within their soil bed. This lets the tomato receive all the nutrients that it can from the soil.
Keeping an eye on the weather is also important. Those hot sunny days that you like are not necessarily good for your tomato plants and it will mean that they should have a weekly watering. Other than this, you can just sit back and wait to enjoy your fresh, ripe tomatoes straight off the vines.
Tags: gardening, Vegetables