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.