How do you grow tomatoes?

In My Humble Opinion
1

My wife and I like tomatoes a lot. Well, she didn’t used to like them at all, until I was able to convince her that however her mother used to mutilate them, that’s actually not what they taste like, and if you get the right kind, they’re really very good.

The kinds you can get at the grocery store are often way expensive and not really very tasty, and kinda hard. Well, we have a place in the back yard where we could grow some tomatoes of our own. So I come to the Dope for suggestions, tips, tricks, you-name-it. Neither of us has ever grown anything but older, so we need all the help we can get.

Would we just go to the hardware store, pick out a package of Beefsteak tomato seeds, plant, water, wait and enjoy later? One thing I want to be absolutely sure of is that we don’t grow too many tomatoes. We don’t want to become known as the people who have to give away baskets of tomatoes to all our friends and neighbors and co-workers because we didn’t expect to grow hundreds of them.

We’d have no complaints about eating tomato sandwiches often, and making our own spaghetti sauces, etc. I don’t think we want to go as far as canning them. We just need enough for a summer and maybe fall, for two people. Is it possible to grow them without using pesticides or other chemicals? Would the plants need to be protected from animals?

If you know anything about growing tomatoes, please come into this thread and bless us with your expertise.

2

It will probably be a lot easier if you buy seedlings – small plants – which are available at all plant shops and Home Depot/Lowes in the spring.

HEre’s what I know as a novice tomato grower myself:

  1. Tomatoes don’t like to be transplanted. If you container them, plant them in a pot large enough for the mature plant.
  2. There are two types of plants: “Determinate” stop growing after a point, more like a shrub. “Indetermininate” never stop getting bigger, more like a vine.
  3. Tomato plants should be staked or supported with those round cage thingies.
  4. For just the two of you I’d say 2-3 plants is the most you’d need.
  5. Tomato plants should be protected from grazing/browsing animals like deer, but as far as I can tell small rodents like squirrels don’t bother them. They are fine in an urban garden or on a porch.
3

Grow them upside down. :smiley:

4

I’ve almost always grown tomatoes in pots. Sometimes large pots, sometimes not so large. They all need staking or cages, especially the ones in small pots.
Tomatoes like good soil, a good drink of water, and they don’t like wet feet. I’d say they need a minimum of four hours of sun per day.
Homegrown do indeed taste better than storebought.
I did, one time, have problems with squirrels getting into my tomatoes. It was after a really bad hailstorm (my tomatoes were unharmed because of their location.) Anyway, I think the hail destroyed the squirrels’ usual food, and they went after my tomatoes. Sprinkling cayenne or some other pepper can help discourage squirrels or other rodents.

5

Squirrels do indeed bother them. Those bastards take one bite out of each tomato. And the stupid ass across the street feeds them. Grrr!

6

Are you sure you don’t have tomato worms (those caterpillars that look just like a curled up tomatoe leaf and take one bite out of every tomato and drop like mouse-looking poops around it?)

I guess I should say I don’t have trouble with squirrels, but others might. :slight_smile:

7

There’s plenty of things that can go wrong with them - hornworms, cutworms, cracking, etc. One really common problem is blossom end rot - that’s where the bottom of the tomato is all gross and black and stuff. I’ve been told to keep them evenly moist - not too wet and don’t let them dry out - and to add calcium to the soil, which you can get in special tomato fertilizers.

I suggest getting a couple different kinds of plant - not only can you try different tomato cultivars, but you can spread out your harvest by getting early and late ones, and if you have weather trouble it might not kill them all.

8

Sunshine, sunshine, sunshine.

That is the most important consideration, tomatoes love the sun and the more they get the healthier they are. Do not grow your plants closer than about 3’, they can deplete the soil of needed calcium and develop blossom end rot.

Other than that, nearly any variety should do well in Florida. Use an indeterminate variety for a harvest all summer long, and try some Romas for canning.

9

If you have any stables in your area, call and see if you can get some horse manure.
Horse manure isn’t hot and doesn’t need to be composted.
Dig a hole, put a shovel full of poop in, fill with dirt and water.
Stick in tomatoe plant.
Tomatoes really love horse manure.
(I put up 250 pounds last year).

10

We had success this year against squirrels. And what we used was fox pee. Predator urine is available at fine feed stores everywhere, and it is well worth it. Just sprinkle around the plants in a circle every week or so, or after a rain. No varmints of any kind. (I guess unless you have foxes nearby.)

11

Take an empty milk jug and poke a few holes in the cap. Fill it with water and upend it near the base of the vine, letting the water dribble out all day.

12

We had success this year against squirrels. And what we used was fox pee. Predator urine is available at fine feed stores everywhere, and it is well worth it. Just sprinkle around the plants in a circle every week or so, or after a rain. No varmints of any kind. (I guess unless you have foxes nearby.)

13

Tomato Basics

There are two growth habits

  1. Determinate – Sometimes referred to as a bush type. It grows to a certain length and stops. You will only get a certain number of fruits before it stops producing flowers. You will get a large number of fruits, they just may stop a few weeks short of your growing season.

  2. Indeterminate – Sometimes referred to as a vine type. It grows longer all season and every leaf node will grow a new branch. It continues to grow all season and set new fruit. You have to stake and pinch back growth on these to control the plant.

The best way to control desease is to plant a variety resistant to tomato deseases. The resistance is indicated by the letters by the name VP and such. Plants not resistant subcome to powdery mildew and such.

Tomato’s will be less deseased and better formed on staked or caged plants.

Full sun will produce double the plant and fruit of partially shaded plant, and fruit takes longer to mature in partial sun. You can increase fruit set by hand if you find it’s required, but it’s not normaly needed. Tomatos that have black spots or yellowed leaves, have a trace element problem. You can stop it from getting worse that year, but you need to prevent the problem the following years. A teaspoon of Epsom salt in per gallon of water every week can help. I like to apply fish emulsion to the plants weekly, as it contains almost any trace elements a plant will need. Be warned that only fish emulsion labled as being “descented” won’t smell strongly of rotted fish.

They will tell you the number of days for set fruit to mature. The 80 to 90 day varieties give you a lot of green tomatos and not many ripe ones in northern states. Plant a short maturaty cool weather variety in the northern states. Short maturiety is around 65 days. I recommend a 65 day tomato anyway, so you get some earlier than later. The best thing about planting for yourself, is plant one of each you like and try a couple new varieties each year. Keep a notebook of what you plant and then write down how you like it and how it grew. After a few years you’ll need to reference the book, so you get what you like the best and grows good in your garden.

Tomatoes will produce a couple fruits on even stressed wimpy plants, so plant some. A half healthy plant, should give you a dozen minimum, and a super healthy plant could have 40 or way more dependant on variety. You don’t have to give them away either, just don’t let them rot on the plant because you don’t need them. Put them away from the healthy plant to rot, into compost.

Planting tip: A tomato can root at every leaf node so a taller plant can be planted with a foot or so of stem in a trench running about 3 inches below the soil. This is a way to deal with spinldly or older plants, and to get a grater root mass on the plant quicker.

Planting tip: cut a black print only newspaper into a 6 x 6 inch square. Wrap the paper around the stem so half will be below ground and half above, to protect the stem from cut worms. Cut worms are present when you go to the garden the next day and the plants are laying on the ground. It wasn’t a rabbit, they eat the plant, the cut worm eats through and leaves people wondering what happened.

14

In case you guys grow potatoes, this can increase the yield tremendously. Continue to bury the bottom of the stem as the plant grows. The leaf nodes will root and produce potatoes in the soil you piled up as the plant grew. You can at least triple the number per plant in a season. Add collars about 2.5 feet in diameter made from edging. to hold the new dirt. It’s an intensive gardening method.

15

Planting seeds direct in the ground will work great for you. In Wisconsin seeds planted at the same time as small tray plants can beat them to maturity, because the transplants can grow slow from transplant shock or the nursery’s handling of the stock. They may also spray a growth regulator on the plants to slow growth, extending the time they have to sell the plants.

16

Another thing about determinate tomatoes is that all the tomatoes on the plant become ripe at the same time, or within a week. These are usually the small canning tomatoes such as the pear-shaped Roma. If you plant determinates, you’d better have a plan for dealing with dozens of tomatoes all at once.

Tomato plants will grow additional roots if you help them. When you make the final transplant to the garden, dig a hole deep enough for almost the entire plant. Then drop the potted plant in the hole, and cover up all but the top 2 inches. The stem below that will grow roots, making a more vigorous plant.

The tomato can make its own insecticide, if you help. Every week or so, tear a leaf in half. The plant responds to injury by making a protective enzyme.

If possible, start with a variety with resistance to hazards. Look for the letters VFNT meaning it’s resistant to Verticilium wilt, I forget what the F stands for, Nematodes (root worms), and Tobacco diseases.

Resist the temptation to plant all the plants you buy. Most gardeners buy more than they need and plant the strongest ones. It’s hard to “waste” the extra plants, but throw them out. In late summer, it’s a hassle to deal with 3 times as many tomatoes as you need. There’s a limit to how many your friends will take.

17

Sorry I was late getting back to the discussion. I wanted to thank everyone for their excellent advice. I’ve bookmarked this thread, and if we get something growing in the spring, I’ll refer back to it and let you know how it goes. Thanks again.

18

In my experience, tomato plants produce tastier fruit (although less of it) if allowed to suffer a little water stress when the fruit is developing. It’s almost impossible to stop them wilting and looking like death on a really hot day anyway, but skipping watering for a day, say once a week does the trick, for me at least. Works with chillies too - they will be a lot hotter if the plant suffers a bit.

Also… those side-shoots you have to keep pinching out on the tomato plants; they can be just pushed into a pot of compost and they will root really easily and grow on to become fruiting plants in the same season.

19

With sugar and spice and everything nice…whoops, that’s how I grow my little girl garden. For tomatoes, my family buys starters at the local prduce stand, usually a variety of types so we have fresh tomatoes all throughout the growing season, and stick them in the garden with a foot or two radius. For the first couple of weeks, yours truely has the job of watering them lightly twice a day. We have fairly warm summers here, so they would fry without water.

The only other trick that I can think of is to visit the circus when it’s in town. If you call up ahead of time and figure out who to talk to, they’ll let you have elephant poop. It makes great fertilizer. I’ve never been involved in calling the circus or picking up the poop from the circus, so I don’t really know who you would talk to for that.

Yeah, the squirrels get at our garder too. I’ve actually sat at my kitchen window and watched a squirrel go up to a tomato plant, pick one that’s a day away from being ripe, take a bite, and then drop it on the ground. That’s about when my dad goes to get the gun he keeps in the pantry just for that purpose.

Good luck with your tomato endeavors, fishbicycle!

-Mosquito