A beginner’s guide to grow tomatoes in your home garden

Spring has just started! The sky is clear and every one is looking forward for a great planting season.

Fresh ripe tomatoes

Tomatoes are one of my favorite vegetables, which is also a popular newbie home-gardener’s favorite. There are many reasons why tomatoes are this popular. They are used in most recipes. They are very easy to grow. Given the right conditions, a few plants can give you a bounty harvest.

I hope this article will provide newbie tomato growers some useful information for a successful tomato growing season.

1. All you need to know about the types of tomatoes:

There are two broad categories of tomato plants - the determinate type and the indeterminate type. The Determinates: Determinate tomatoes are varieties that grow to a fixed mature size. They are also called bush tomatoes since they grow to a limited height of about 4 ft.

They produce their fruits in a single flush, which will ripen simultaneously in a short period of about 2 weeks. Once this first flush of fruit is ripened, the plant will start losing its vigor and will not produce any new fruit. Determinate tomatoes are ideal if you have limited space or if you are growing them in a container.

Examples: Many roma tomato varieties such as, Better Bush, Celebrity (some call it as semi-determinate), Marglobe and Rutgers etc are determinate types.


The Indeterminates: Most of the time the tomato variety you are going to grow in your home garden will be of indeterminate type. These plants fruit throughout the summer season and into Fall, until they are killed by frost. If properly supported, they can reach heights of up to 10 feet. Staking or caging is a requirement for indeterminate tomatoes.

Examples:: Early Girl, Big Boy, Beef Master and most cherry tomatoes.

2. Start from baby plants instead of seeds:

I have watched newbie growers excitedly purchasing tomato seeds. This is OK if you are looking for a full lifecycle growing experience.



tomatoes - When you buy, find the ones with two/three plants per pot

However if you are planting only a few tomatoes, and if you are in a climatic zone that has only a few precious growing months, it is better to buy baby plants rather than starting from the seed.

Starting from the seed also requires providing special conditions for their proper germination and growth. This can be too much of a hassle for an average home gardener who will be growing only 5 to 10 tomato plants. So we recommend that you start from young plants instead of seeds.

When you buy your young plants, don’t buy the plants that are in the smallest cutest pot. Go for the bigger plants in the big pots - the bigger the better.

Also look for starter planters with multiple seedlings. When you plant these multiple babies, separate them into two plants and plant them individually about 6 to 8 inches apart on the same pit.
You may be paying a dollar or two extra for such bigger plants. But you will be rewarded by being able to harvest your tomatoes 2 or 3 weeks earlier. Also, the larger plants are sturdier and therefore easier to take care of by a beginning gardener.

3. Mulch before you plant:

Studies have shown that mulching your tomato plants has several benefits. Mulching with organic materials is ideal because it builds the soil while conserving water and reducing weeds.



Tomato planting with plastic mulch

However, our favorite mulch is black plastic sheets. You can buy this inexpensively from Lowes or Home Depot. Plastic mulch will warm the soil and eliminate the weeds.

By laying the mulch down a few days prior to planting, it will warm the soil and provide an ideal environment for rapid root growth. When it is time to plant, cut a round hole by scissors or make an X slit in the plastic larger than the diameter of the original plant container. Some avid tomato growers use newspapers as their mulch with great success.  

4. Make sure to provide good spacing between your plants:

If you are not limited by space, plant your tomato plants about 4 feet apart. Assuming that you are going to cage your tomatoes (click here to read our article on making homemade tomato cages) the 4 feet spacing will give you enough room to walk around when you harvest your tomatoes.



Planting tomato - Spacing

You can view a recommended spacing plan in the diagram shown here. However, if you are limited by space you can plant them closer. We do not recommend planting the indeterminate types closer than 3 feet.  

5. Plant them deep for a robust root system:

Once you decide where to plant your tomatoes, loosen up the soil for about 1.5 ft diameter to 1 ft deep. Mix compost or dried powdered manure with the soil. It would be better, if you can do this several days before planting your tomato seedling.

An hour before you remove the seedlings from their starter planters, water them well. This way it will be very easy for your to remove the plants. This will also help you to keep the soil sorrounding the root ball almost intact.

When you are ready to plant the seedling, cut the side of the planter using a scissors so that you can remove the seedling with the least disturbance to the root ball. This will reduce the transplanting shock and increase the chances of survival of your tender young plant.

I always plant two plants in each pit, with 6 to 8 inches spacing between the two plants. This way I can guarantee that at least one of the plants will survive. This is particularly recommended if you are new to gardening.

To get a healthy root system, plant them deep - deeper than they were in their original containers. For this, remove a few lower leaves. Plant them deep after leaving about 3 to 6 inches of the crown above.



Tomatoes - See the yellow arrow. The plant should go that deep into the soil when you plant.



tomatoes - Before you plant, cut the lower leaves for deep planting

Your plant may not look nice at this time; but don’t worry, in a few weeks it will grow and become much bigger. This procedure will promote rooting from the entire stem underground and will result in a plant with a robust root system.

Transplant in the evening and provide a temporary shade for a few days to protect the plant from sudden exposure to the harsh sun.  

6. Cover your tomatoes if you expect a cold snap:


It is crucial that you wait until the last frost date for your area before planting your tomatoes. If you unexpectedly get a cold snap after planting, be sure to cover your tomato plants using a cold frame. You can easily make a cold frame by using a few wooden stakes and a plastic sheet.

Expert gardeners effectively extend their tomato growing season by planting tomatoes early and then covering them using homemade cold frames.

7. Give a boost to the young plants when they are ready for nutrients:

After you plant your young tomato, make a ring around the plants about a foot away using a stick. (You loosened the soil that far, didn’t you?). Sprinkle two tablespoon full of 6:6:6 or 10:10:10 fertilizer along this ring.

Cover the granules with soil to prevent exposure (and nutrient loss) to sunlight. Water well. As always, read directions before you apply your fertilizer.

8. Never over-water your tomatoes:

This is especially important, if you are growing your plants on ground as opposed to containers. Over-watering, rather than under-watering, kills most tomato plants. You need to promote good aeration (supply of Oxygen) to the root system.

So it is perfectly healthy for the plants to have a little bit of dry spell between watering. If your soil is not particularly sandy, watering two times a week is sufficient. This can be reduced if it rains.
 



tomato with wire mesh cage

9. Caging, staking, providing supports:

Caging or providing support is an important part of tomato growing. Whether you cage or stake them is a personal preference. Regardless of the method, tomato plants should be supported. Plants with foliage and fruit supported off the ground will fruit more than unsupported plants.

Personally, I prefer caging. Caging has several advantages. It involves less work than staking. Once the cage is placed over the plant, there is no further manipulation of the plant (no pruning, no tying) is necessary. Please click here to read our article on making homemade tomato cages.

10. Is it worth collecting seeds from my tomatoes for next year?

Generally no. Unless you want to preserve a heirloom variety. From a practical point of view for a home grower, raising a few tomato plants from seeds is not worth the effort. It is easier to buy a few tomato plants at the beginning of the season from your favorite nursery, or from Lowes or Home Depot.

That being said, if you wish to, you will be able to collect and propagate seeds from tomatoes as long as it is not a hybrid variety. Hybrid tomatoes do not remain true to their type if grown from the seed. So the plants that grow from the seeds of a hybrid plant may or may not resemble the parent variety.

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