Growing Tomatoes

I've long been known by my neighbors as the king of growing tomatoes.  I love tomatoes for so many reasons and home grown tomatoes just taste better. So, in frustration of the growing shade in my back yard that has made gardening near impossible, I am going to share my secrets so everyone else can grow awesome tomatoes, and hopefully share.

A lot of what I share is going against convential wisdom. Don't be alarmed. These are tried and true methods. The proof is in the pudding, so to speak, and I grow lots of monster tomatoes in different locations.

Here we go:

1. Pick a Sunny Spot -- Tomatoes love and need sun. Sunlight is fuel for the engine. Scope out a spot for tomatoes in advance. Try to find a spot that gets as much sunlight as possible, from sunrise to sunset, if possible. Take a look at the location in the morning, midday, and afternoon to know for sure. Without sunlight, none of the rest of this matters.
2. Buy Tall Tomato Plants and Bury Them -- Find the tallest tomato seedlings you can. The size doesn't matter, only the height. When you plant, strip all but the top leaves off and put all of the stem but the top two inches or so in the soil. I often dig a horizontal trench to do this. All of the stem below ground is going to turn into a giant root to suck up water and nutrients.
3. Protect the Stems -- Wrap a piece of newspaper around the stem at ground level. This protects the stems from getting eaten.
4. Plant Different Varieties -- This is a good rule with anything. If you plant all of one kind and they develop a problem, you lose all your plants. Besides, different varieties have different flavors and sizes and mature at different times, so it helps keep you in good tomatoes all season long for a variety of uses.
5. Plant Close -- This is more of a preference than a necessity, but I really like planting tomatoes close together. They tend to grow up, rather than out, and they crowd out the weeds better. This works really well with my horizontal tomato cages.
6. Amend the Soil -- A good general slow release fertilizer is a good thing to mix into the soil before planting. Don't dump it on the plan directly -- it could hurt the plant. I also like to add organic blood meal as a source of nitrogen (tomatoes love nitrogen). If you are near concrete (sidewalks, curbs, the foundation of a building, etc), I also recommend adding some sulfur. It is readily available in pellet form and helps to get the soil pH about right.
7. Use Tomato Cages -- Unless you are using multiple 2x4s for stakes, they aren't going to cut it. Get some woven wire at least 5 feet tall and make your own cages, or consider making horizontal tomato cages. If you have deer or other critters in the area, you may also want to fence around your spot. I, personally, added sides to my horizontal tomato cages at my current house to keep deer and raccoons out.
   
     
8. Mulch -- I recommend mulching your tomatoes when they are a couple of feet high with straw. There are other materials you can use, but I find straw cheap, effective, and a good soil amendment to turn in for next year.
9. Water -- Tomatoes need water. I recommend setting up an automatically timed drip irrigation system. Big box stores like lowes have nice kits. Add a timer and you are done. A garden hose and a sprinkler also works. In my humid ~ zone 6 climate, with a sprinkler I usually only water when temperatures are at or above 90 or when we don't get rain for several days. Water for a few hours in the morning to 1) make sure the water soaks in deep to get picked up by the roots we made in step 2, and 2) to make sure things don't stay moist above ground to long and develop mold or fungus.
10. Fertilize -- This is my biggest secret that everyone knows about. I fertilize once a week using a pump sprayer. You can use miracle grow or blood meal (though I've never tried that in a sprayer). Spray a good bit on the ground at the bottom of the stems (where our big root is) and on the leaves. Yes, on the leaves -- tomatoes can absorb nutrients through the leaves. Do not do this if it is really hot or dry -- wait until a cooler time of day, perhaps in the morning a hour or two after watering.
11. Don't Prune, but Do Pull Flowers Early -- A lot of people spend time pruning "suckers" (the shoots that appear between a main stem and a branch that head off in a typical 45 degree angle) off their tomato plants. I don't, because 1) they have leaves and absorb sunlight and nutrition, 2) my plants have plenty of water and nutrition to make them grown, and 3) I get tomatoes on them. What I do recommend is pulling the blooms off of plants until the get to 2 or 2 1/2 feet tall. This lets the plant focus on growing up rather than producing fruit.
12. Harvest Often -- When tomato season is in full swing, I have to harvest every other day. If you don't, tomatoes will go bad on the vine, and that is lost reward and it's bad for the plants. Rotten tomatoes can attract insects and critters, so keep your tomatoes free of rotten tomatoes and get your harvest.
13. Let the Bed Set Fallow until Spring -- A lot of people want to clean up their tomato beds in the fall. I leave my alone until spring. It makes it far easier to remove the massive dead plants without damage tomato cages. It also gives the straw and other organic matter time to decompose before I work it into the soil. 

Pinterest Tomatoes: Do's and Don'ts

I joined Pinterest recently, and I have found it to be a good source of inspiration for the garden and landscaping I hope to build someday.  Pinterest is a good way to enjoy a hobby when you can't really enjoy your hobby right now.  For me, a bad back is keeping me out of the garden beds, but I imagine it will be just as useful in winter.  The problem with Pinterest is that a lot of the ideas are bad, especially when it comes to tomatoes. So let's run down some Do's and Don'ts for tomatoes from a gardeners who's plants regularly hit 8 feet and are the pride of the neighborhood.

How-to Plant

Buy tall plants, strip all the leaves but the top two, and plant the entire stem up to an inch below the leaves.  All the stem below ground will become root.  This makes a solid root start for pulling in nutrients and water.

Wrap the stem with a 1 inch wide piece of newspaper at ground level (half above, half below) to protect from insects

Place aluminum foil or aluminum pie tins tied to stakes to scare birds away, if they are a problem.

Fence the area to keep out rabbits, deer, and other critters, if you have problems.

Fertilizer

There is no magic fertilizer for tomatoes.  Dumping salt, household ammonia, or other 'magic' ingredients into the soil isn't going to fix your soil problems.  Generally, compost is what you need first, along with natural organic matter, to feed your soil.  Compost and natural organic matter in your soil will balance the pH and supply all the micronutrients tomatoes and other plants need. Till in your fall leaves, buy cheap bags of compost (or in bulk, if you can), and keep your soil healthy first.

For bigger plants (i.e. more green) fertilize with nitrogen.  I recommend MiracleGrow and its knockoffs, and bloodmeal as both excellent sources of nitrogen for garden plants.  Nitrogen increases plant greenery, which drives fruit production if you give it the other things it needs.

MiracleGrow-like high nitrogen fertilizers that are water soluble can be mixed up in a sprayer and directly applied to the leaves.  Tomatoes will absorb the nutrients directly.

Watering

Watering is simple, but can be expensive.  Soaker hoses or drip irrigation is the way to go and put it in place when you plant your tomatoes.  Put them on a timer that automatically waters as often as needed for your climate and current weather conditions, making sure you soak the soil deeply by watering at least 1 hour. Water earlier in the day to avoid having diseases that come from leaving soggy plants overnight.

Putting containers in the ground is generally a bad idea, because it means your shallow watering which doesn't promote root growth.  Also, when a root hits dry air, it dies, so containers in the ground that go empty kill roots.

Containers

Tomatoes build large, healthy, productive plants from the ground up.  Generally, use large containers, or better yet, the ground, so roots can grow without limits.  A two liter bottle is too smalls for tomatoes, and might even be too small for pepper plants (mine regularly reach 3 feet high).  

The picture to the right shows my tomato plants from a previous year spilling over a 4 foot wall out of a straw bale garden.  Only a half whiskey barrel would have been large enough to hold this relatively small plant upright through the season.

Pruning

Suckers limbs on tomatoes are a myth.  Sucker limbs, if given enough water, nutrients, and sun, can grow into full branches and produce fruit.  Pruning tomato plants does not help a plant produce more fruit, unless it is already limited by other factors, like nutrients, soil volume, sun, or water.

Location, Location, Location

The most important factor in growing large, productive tomatoes is sun.  A spot that can see sun all day is best.  Less sun is less ideal.  Afternoon sun is more important than morning sun.  

Cages

If you cages are for supporting tomato plants only, use horizontal tomato cages.  They make picking the tomatoes easier, and they are easy to remove for working the soil.  My cages with still-growing tomato plants can be seen here.

If your cages are for keeping out critters, be sure they are large enough to accommodate your tomato plants.

Plant Spacing

Tomato plants are like fish in a fish tank.  It is not the physical size that limits the number, it is the availability of resources.  With good compost-rich soil, high nitrogen fertilizer, regularly watering, and good supports, I was able to plant 12 to 16 plants in a 4 ft by 12 ft bed and grow more tomatoes than our household of 6 and all our friends and neighbors could possibly use.  These healthy plants would reach 6 to 8 feet in height and choke out all the weeks (except morning glory -- ick).

Mulching

Mulch is good to maintain soil moisture and keep weeds down.  It also can be turned to the soil to add organic matter.  I prefer straw, added after the plants reach 18 inches, but any reasonable organic mulch will work.

Forcing Ripening

If you end up with big tomatoes that just won't ripen, toss an overripe tomatoe from the supermarket under your tomato plants to rot.  The gases it gives off will start the ripening process.

Summary

Tomatoes are the output of a plant engine, consisting of roots and leaves, that turn sun, water, soil and air nutrients into tomatoes.  To get the best tomatoes, grow the plant engine as large as you can, and give it all the right ingredients to make tomatoes.

In the future, I am hoping to attempt to grow tomatoes indoors over the winter in a plastic drum.  I'll share my results in a future post.

2014 Review and 2015 Resolutions

2014 has been a tough year.  I've been disabled by a back injury for most of the year, which has put a huge damper on getting things done around the new house.  The garden was basically completely done by my wife and kids, and it didn't go well after we had most of our seedlings eaten by something.  Living near a woods is going to be a new adventure.

2015 Could be a much better year.  I am healing.  I am dedicating myself to losing weight.  By spring I should be back to work and well on my way to being able to work outside, if everything goes well.

So here is my list of things to do for the year:

1. Get healthy.  Specifically this means getting back to work and losing weight by sticking to a reasonable diet, starting today.
   
2. Putting in a real garden in a permanent location.  This is going to be a lot of work, but it will be worth it in the long run.
   
3. Getting the property surveyed.  I really need to know what things around fall on what side of property lines so I can get my to do list figured out.
   
4. Get the pool clean and figure out my maintenance on it.  Last summer was a disaster.  I just couldn't keep the chlorine levels up.
   
5. Add a shed for the garden.  This is my stretch goal.

Some End of Season Pics

Unfortunately very few of the plants we started survived being the first couple weeks due to critters or pests of some sort in our straw bale garden.  Next year when I put together the permanent garden, I'll be taking better precautions.

Our tomato plants decided to grow over the block wall and it worked very well.  It didn't require cages or staking, though there just wasn't a lot of sun in this location, and I didn't fertilize or water.

The peppers did ok, fighting off some pest or critter.  We got reasonable harvests.

In both cases harvest were less that what were used to.

We also had an herb / onion bed I hastily started with help from my daughter's.  Now I have to remember what we planted and harvest it.

Overall I give the straw bale gardening high marks.  It worked pretty darn well in this crappy location as the plant sizes show.  I may use it as a basis for first year gardens in the future.

Out of Commission

It has been a slow start to my gardening here at the new Zone 6 homestead.  I hurt my back and have been recovering all summer.  It has been a very slow recovery so far, and I'm not back yet.

Taking the first season just to look and watch the yard and woods and landscaping has been good.  I am learning what I need to plan for, what I need to look out for, and what seems to work and not work.  Just driving around and looking at other people's gardens has taught me a lot.

I look forward to seeing what the autumn has yet to hold for us.

An Introduction

So I used to be the Zone 5 Gardener , but first I was rezoned, and then we moved.  I started this blog (and the previous blog) to share ideas, successes, and failures in gardening, especially with those other people that look online and only find gardeners in warm places like California and Florida.

My gardening style is different.  I strive for low maintenance, exotic looking landscaping, and large tomatoes.  My garden is usually a salsa garden, taking up most of the space with tomatoes, peppers, and onions.

I'm not a pure organic gardener, but I don't like to waste what I have, and I don't like to buy things I don't need, so many of my methods overlap with organic gardening.

Here are my top ten gardening tips of all time:

1.  Put your garden in full sun and raised slightly.  Sun = energy = good growth.  Raised garden beds, even if only raised a couple of inches, don't pick up as much debris, become workable earlier in spring, and usually have less problems with drainage.

2.  Good gardeners grow vegetables; great gardeners grow soil.  Feed your soil.  Add organic matter to your soil every chance you get.  I like to use composted leaves (which I compost right on the garden from fall to spring and then till in), bagged composted manure, peat moss, and composted garden and household scraps.

3.  Buy your tomatoes tall and plan them deep.  Buy the tall seedlings, strip all of the leaves off except the top 2 to 4, and bury the seedlings up to the leaves.  Everything you bury will become root.

4.  Feed the tomato plants from top to bottom.  All of the plant can absorb fertilizer, so I usually spray my tomatoes down with a water soluble fertilizer.

5.  Use blood meal to boost nitrogen in your garden soil in spring.  It is as good if not better than most high nitrogen fertilizers.

6.  If you are gardening near concrete, sulfur can be your friend.  Sulfur makes the soil more acidic which counters the effects of concrete and other man-made alkaline materials.  This is especially useful for azaleas, blueberries, river birch, and other plants that dislike alkaline soil.  Coffee grounds can also help.  Sulfur is also an important nutrient for peppers.

7.  Build your tomato cages horizontally.

8.  Seek a balance with nature.  My neighbors had tons of trouble with rabbits eating their garden.  I went easy on the lawn treatment so clover would grow between the back fence and the garden.  When the bowling-ball sized bunnies appeared in the yard, they would spend hours chewing on the clover and never touch my garden.

9.  Mow your grass high.  It will stay greener and require less water, fertilizer, and weed control.

10.  Use your leaves.  Sticking leaves out on the curb to be picked up, burning them, or throwing them away is a waste of a wonderful resource.  Mulch them into your lawn as a naturally composting fertilizer or compost them somewhere for use in garden and flower beds.

Planning the New Garden

So we're all settled in at the new house, and as March has evolved, the snow has disappeared and it is time to start thinking about the new garden.  The new house is half an acre in the woods, with a pool taking up the best sunny spot in the backyard.  To make things evens more interesting, we have a whole herd (14 counted) deer living in the back woods.  The property also sits on a large hill sloping down from the front yard all the way to the back of the backyard.

So the first thing to do is to figure out where the sunny summertime spots are.  Sun is the most important ingredient for a successful garden.  I went to the solar site and used their solar panel inclination calculator to determine where the sun angle will be in the summer.  I need to be at least 60 degrees off of shadow from the neighbor's foliage from their trees.  Hopefully this falls outside of the pool fence, so I have enough room for an 8 x 12 garden spot.

Deer and other wildlife are going to be a fact of life.  I am planning to outfit the garden with a motion activated sprinkler to keep big things away.  Some fencing and a gate will hopefully keep the rest of things out.

I also get to build a new version of my horizontal tomato cages.

Some pictures of the new property will be coming soon.  As bulbs and plants awaken this spring, I'll be taking 'before' pictures and trying to catalog what we're starting with, since at least those plants can survive the deer and climate here.

Eventually, a fully fenced backyard may be in the works.