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The Key to Getting the Most from Your Tomato Garden

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Written by Dave Truman

Thursday, 01 May 2008

by DaveTruman

Tomatoes are one of the best fruit vegetables. Tiny cherry tomatoes with their sweet, tangy taste, can be eaten whole. Tomatoes will add a zip of color to a boring salad. Tomato sauce makes pizza or pasta even more appetizing when added. These are just some of the benefits you will get from growing your own tomatoes.

While tomatoes come in many different shapes, sizes and colors there are actually only two varieties of tomatoes. One is the Determinates and the other is the Indeterminates. Determinate tomatoes grow on vines that stop growing at 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.

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