How We Grow Tomatoes

1. Introduction
2. Choosing a Variety
3. Our Favorites
4. When to Start Your Seeds
5. How To Start Your Seeds
6. Soil and Sun
7. Planting Out
8. Watering
9. Fertilizing
10. Harvesting
11. Special Considerations
12. Growing Tips
13. Pests and Problems

1. Introduction

It seems that everybody grows tomatoes, or at least most gardeners do. It is the most popular vegetable grown (...it's actually a fruit...), and there is no wondering why—there is absolutely no comparison between the pink-orange, cardboard-textured, flavorless, plasmic blobs sold in many produce sections as tomatoes and the vine-ripened-to-perfection, just-picked, home-grown, real-life tomatoes!

There is nothing like a vine-ripened tomato for taste or texture, or for satisfaction of having grown something wonderfully made by our Creator.

And besides, tomatoes are one of the easiest plants to grow. They are at home in the garden, in containers, and even in the hydroponic greenhouse.

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2. Choosing a Variety

There is a variety of tomato for every garden and every gardener. With over 25,000 varieties out there, you can find the perfect tomato for your tastes.

The variety of tomato you grow depends not only on the taste and color you want, but also on the space that you have available, how much time you have to work your tomato plants, what you will be using the tomatoes for (salad, sauce, slicing, canning, etc.), and when you want to harvest—all at once or over the entire growing season.

Whether you need a slicing tomato for a sandwich, or a saucy tomato, or a colorful tomato for a salad, there is a variety for you. And the varieties are virtually unlimited—you can grow red, yellow, green, purple, and pink tomatoes; cherry, beefsteak, plum, pear, and grape tomatoes; so many choices, so little garden space!

There are two growth types to choose from. A determinate variety grows as a 3- to 4-foot-tall bush and sets all its fruit within a few weeks. Plant these about two feet apart in the garden or individually in containers.

An indeterminate variety grows as a vine, needs staking, trellising or caging, but produces a continuous harvest. Plant these eighteen inches apart when staking (a little more work to maintain) or three feet apart in cages (hardly any work).

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3. Our Favorites

For canning and sauces: Roma
For cherry tomatoes: Sweet 100
For the BEST tomato taste: Brandywine or Cherokee Purple

Because there are so many different colors and flavors (literally thousands of varieties) of tomato available to the home gardener, it is difficult to decide a favorite for salads or for slicing. Try any. If you are fond of tomatoes, you probably won't be disappointed. If you aren't too fond of tomatoes, you might find one you can enjoy. But you'll probably have to buy seeds to get your absolute favorite. The garden centers and nurseries carry only a few popular kinds. So look in the seed catalogs and give an unusual tomato a try!

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4. When to Start Your Seeds

Tomatoes are best started indoors. This needs to be done 6 to 8 weeks before the last anticipated frost date (for our zone 9-ish garden, the first part of March) Some say to transplant your plants into the garden on or just after St. Patrick's Day, while other tomato aficionados around here (San Diego County) say to wait for April 1st to set out the plants.

So plant your seeds the first week or so of February, and if the weather is warm in mid-March set them out but watch for late frost. If the weather is cold wait until the first week or so in April.

If you don't want to mess with starting seeds, go to the nursery the first warm weekend in April and buy seedlings ready to plant!

Plan also to make a planting of tomatoes in August for a great fall harvest!

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5. How To Start Your Seeds

Potting mix — There are special seed starting mixes available in the garden centers and nurseries, or you can make your own special mix, but we use our regular potting soil mix: equal parts of sand, peat moss, and perlite or vermiculite.

Moisten your potting mix to the consistency of a damp sponge. This will provide for better, and faster germination. Also, after planting your seeds you don't need to water until your plants are up.

You can use just about anything: a flat, a pot, or a cell pack left over from those transplants you bought last season; a yogurt cup, or the bottom "half" of a plastic soda bottle, or a milk carton cut in half length-wise — be sure to punch some holes in the bottom for drainage; an egg carton or even egg shells (okay, it's possible and may be fun for the kids, but you'll have to transplant your seedlings rather quickly).

Fill your planting container with your soil mix up to the rim and pack it down a little. Top it off so that the soil mix comes right to the top of the container. This will increase air flow across the soil aiding germination and discouraging pathogens.

Plant your seeds about a quarter inch deep (the general rule is to plant a seed at a depth of three to four times its thickness). Be sure your tomato seeds are covered with soil — tomato seeds like it dark to germinate.

Cover your planted container with plastic wrap to hold in the moisture and keep in a warm place in the house. (The optimum soil temperature for seed germination is 68°F or above. The germination rate below 60°F is very slow.) Your seeds will not need sunlight to germinate, but as soon as you see them emerging, take the cover off and set them in a sunny window sill if it is cold outside at night (below 50°F), or outside in a sunny, but sheltered location. For us this is a south facing covered patio.

Make sure the soil mix does not dry out. You want the soil to be moist, not soggy. Watering from overhead tends to wash out the seedlings or bend them over. We water our seedlings by setting them in their pots in a tray of water, letting the soil draw up the water like a wick. Do not leave the seedlings stand in water over night. In fact, the trick is to put just enough water in the tray to be drawn up into the soil containers in a half hour or so. Every week or so we mix up some fish emulsion according to the directions on the bottle and pour it into the watering tray.

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6. Soil and Sun

Tomatoes can be grown on many different soil types, but they prefer a deep, well-drained, slightly acid (pH of 6.2 to 6.8), loamy soil, with sufficient organic matter and nutrients. In our soil (Southern California), you can supply all of the above requirements by adding compost to the soil on a regular basis, especially when you transplant your tomato plants. A thick mulch around your tomatoes will help hold the soil moisture steady—another preference of the tomato.

Tomatoes need full sun — at least six to eight hours per day.

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7. Planting Out

A week or two before your transplant date, in our case around the first of March, work the garden soil thoroughly, adding generous amounts of compost. You may want to solarize the soil, or just cover it with a tarp or plastic to keep any weeds from sprouting until you're ready to plant.

About ten days before transplanting, you'll need to start "hardening off" your young plants by setting them (in their pots) outdoors in a lightly shaded area for an hour or two. Each day, leave them outside longer until they remain outside overnight. If frost (or even just a cold night) is expected, bring them indoors again and wait for the nights to stay safely above freezing. tomatoes are sensitive to cold—they can be damaged by nighttime temperatures below 50°F!

The spacing of your tomato plants depends on the type you're growing:

Determinate (bush-type) — 2 feet apart
Indeterminate (vine-type) grown on stakes — 18 inches apart
Indeterminate grown in cages — 3 feet apart

Tomatoes will produce roots all along any stem that is in the soil. When planting, bury the entire plant up to the top half-dozen or so leaves. Strip off the leaves that would be below the surface. If your plants are exceptionally long and leggy, bury the root ball and stem horizontally in the soil leaving the top gently curving up out of the soil.

(If you are going to use the milk jug watering method (see below), now would be the time to "plant" your milk jugs as well.)

Mulch heavily around the tomato plants to keep weeds down and moisture in the soil. Straw, pine bark, or compost (if you have lots of it) work well.

Stake or Pole vs. Cage

Determinate (bush-like) varieties can be grown without any support, however we sometimes use small cages to help keep the fruit and leaves off the ground reducing the potential for disease and insect problems. A thick clean mulch like straw helps here.

Indeterminate (vine) varieties can be allowed to sprawl on top of a thick layer of straw also, but we use cages for support. In a tomato cage (a 3 foot diameter cylinder of field wire or concrete construction wire with a mesh large enough to pull the mature fruit through) the vine is pretty much left to its own. No need to snap off the suckers (shoots that develop a the union of a branch and the main stem).

The cage can be covered with a plastic bag to act as a mini greenhouse for nights where the temperature is expected to dip below freezing. Cut the bottom end open and slip the plastic tube over the cage. Tie it at the top at night; slip it down to the bottom of the cage during the day.

If you use a stake or trellis instead of a cage (to save space) you'll have to take off most of the suckers, leaving some at the top and mid-plant to provide shade for the ripening fruit. Also you'll have to tie the main stem to the stake at regular intervals.

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8. Watering

Do not let the soil (in the root zone) dry out, but water deeply rather than frequently. You don't want a soggy bog, just moist soil. Keep the plants evenly watered—a consistent amount of water at each watering, on a consistent schedule. (Most authors call for, as a general rule, 1 to 1 and a half inches of water per week, but the proper amount depends on the texture and organic content of your soil as well as the weather. Stick your finger down into the soil near the base of the plant to find out if it needs more or less water.)

We use gallon milk jugs (you could use 2-liter soda bottles) buried up to their shoulders next to the tomato plant (do this at planting time, not later so you don't disturb the roots), with holes punched in the bottom and the side nearest the plant. We fill each jug every other day in normal weather, every day in the hottest weather.

Just before the fruit ripens, decrease the amount of water. This will improve the flavor and make less watery tomatoes.

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9. Fertilizing

Along with a consistent supply of water, tomatoes need a consistent source of nutrients.

Compost applied as a mulch adds nutrients to the soil (though most of them do not make it down to the root zone in our alkaline soil), but we also add fish emulsion diluted and applied at a rate according to the instructions on the bottle. The buried milk jugs make this easy—the fish emulsion goes in at the weekly regular watering.

Follow the package instructions carefully. Adding more fertilizer (nitrogen) than its instructions recommend may give you greener bushier plants, but less fruit.

Some find it helpful to add a sprinkle of Epsom salts in the bottom of the hole at transplant time. Others add crushed eggshells to provide calcium as the plant sets and matures fruit. (Blossom-end rot is caused by a calcium deficiency most likely brought on by uneven watering—letting the soil dry out between waterings.) We sometimes sprinkle a bit of Sul-Po-Mag into the bottom of the hole at planting. The sulphur lowers the pH, improving the availability and absorption of calcium, phosphorus, potassium and other necessary nutrients. Adding compost regularly to the soil and using it as a layer of mulch will provide all of these.

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10. Harvesting

Depending on which variety you are growing, you can expect to begin harvesting your tomatoes 55 to 100 days from the day you set them out in the garden. The small cherry tomatoes tend to ripen the fastest while the big slicing tomatoes take longer typically. (Check the seed packet for the number of days to harvest, and for what color your tomatoes will be when ripe.)

Commercial (supermarket) tomato harvesting goes something like this:

Pole-grown (indeterminate-type), fresh-market tomatoes are harvested when fruit not quite pink in color (a long way from ripe). Bush-grown (determinate-type), tomatoes are harvested when about 15 percent of the fruit is red, that means that 85 percent of the fruit is still far from ripe. The tomatoes are then sorted and packed into cartons. The cartons of fruit are typically placed in temperature-controlled storage for up to 10 days and are subjected to an ethylene treatment (to "ripen" them) prior to going to market.

Harvesting in the garden goes something like this:

It's a Saturday in June and you're making a sandwich for lunch and need a slice of tomato. You go out to your garden and pick the reddest slicing tomato out there.

Later, you're making a dinner salad and need some cherry tomatoes and some yellow pear tomatoes and some purple Cherokee tomatoes to go with what was left of the slicing tomato you used at lunch (provided there was any left after you ate a slice or two with a sprinkle of salt). You go out to your garden and you pick handfuls of the ripest, yummiest cherries, yellow pears, and purple Cherokees out there (you pick a few extra to eat on the way back to the house).

Pick your tomatoes when they are red (or whatever color they are supposed to be) and firm. Those you don't eat fresh off the vine can be stored in a cool place (optimally 60°F) — that is, not in the refrigerator and not in a plastic bag.

If, on that rare occasion in the winter, frost threatens and there are a dozen or so still-green tomatoes on the vine, go ahead and pick them, wrap them loosely in newspaper or a brown paper bag (not plastic!) and store them in a cool, dark, dry place. Better: fry them up at once! Fried green tomatoes take the sting out of having to pull up your tomato plants.

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11. Special Considerations

If you can help it, don't plant your tomatoes where other members of the nightshade family—peppers, eggplants, potatoes, or tomatoes—were planted the year before. The plants in this family have similar nutritional needs and are susceptible to similar diseases. Growing a relative in the same spot year after year can deplete the soil of important nutrients and may leave pathogens in the soil and in leaf litter.

If you do have to plant them in the same location, be sure to add lots of compost to the soil. This will help deter diseases and nematodes. See below.

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12. Growing Tips

Once the fruit sets, be sure to keep the plants evenly watered until they're nearly ripe. The rule of thumb is an inch and a half a week, but if you begin the season watering more heavily, keep up the same rate. Just before the fruit ripens, taper off a bit. This will make the flavor richer and the tomatoes less watery.

Pick your tomatoes when they are full, red, and firm. Eat them fresh off the vine or store them at about 60°F. If you find yourself frantically picking the last several dozen while they're still green (to avoid an early autumn frost, for example), wrap them loosely in newspaper or a brown paper bag and store them in a cool, dark, dry place. Or count your blessings and fry them up at once!

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13. Pests and Problems

Nematodes — these microscopic worms live in the soil and weaken or destroy tomato and other plants by boring into the roots, making galls or nodules in the roots. They like the warm weather and moist soil (just like your tomatoes). There are several ways to control these pests.

• Use chemicals — (last resort)
• Solarize your soil. The summer before planting tomatoes, till or turn the planned tomato plot, then cover it completely with clear plastic; seal the edges with soil. Leave the plastic in place for eight weeks in the hottest, sunniest weather — July and August. The top couple of inches of soil will reach 130°F or more. The next foot or so can reach temperatures into the 90's effectively killing nematodes, and fungus and other unwanted organisms including some weed seeds. They will all eventually return, so in a few years, repeat the solarization process.
• Plant French marigolds (tagetes patula) on seven inches apart in all directions, completely covering the garden plot the summer before planting tomatoes or other susceptible plants. This looks more appealing than the solarization process, but it takes a little more work and time (three months instead of two), and it doesn't kill other unwanted organisms or any weed seeds.
• Add beneficial nematodes to the garden plot (you can order these from your local garden center).
• Add humus (compost) to the soil—nematodes do not like soil rich in organic matter. But this should be done anyway on a regular basis.

Cutworms — these nocturnal caterpillars wrap themselves around and chew through the stems of young plants. They can be foiled by putting a simple collar around each plant at transplant time — make your own from coffee cans, soda cans, plastic drink bottles with both ends cut out, or cardboard paper towel and toilet paper rolls. Sink the collar into the soil about an inch, letting it stand up above the soil a couple of inches. These critters won't be a much of a problem if we set out our tomatoes soon after the last frost.

Hornworms and other caterpillars — these eat holes in the leaves or even entire leaves. Hand pick off these gluttons off your plants and dispose of as you see fit. (Our chickens love them!) Bt works well also.

Blossom drop — lots of flowers but no fruit. Anything from high humidity to unseasonable cold could cause this to happen. The plants must be pollinated to set fruit — you can help get the pollen up and moving by shaking the plant to loosen it up a bit.

Blossom-end rot — a mark or dark scar and flattening at one end. This is probably caused by a calcium deficiency (possibly brought on by letting the soil dry out in the root zone) or a sudden change in temperature during fruit set. The rest of the tomato is fine to eat, just cut off the bad part.

Cat-facing — marked and scarred all over. This is probably a result of transplanting too early, insufficient water, or unusually high temperatures. Again, cut away the scarred area.

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