If you’re not a big fan of getting dirty in the outside garden, then fear not. Most of the vegetables grown at home can be grown equally well in containers. By finding the right container and filling it with the right potting mixture, you will be able to grow anything you want in it, even tomatoes.

First you need to find the right size container for your plants. If you want the little cherry tomatoes (which are excellent in salads) then you can use the regular size hanging baskets, but if you prefer the larger tomatoes you’d do best to purchase five gallon buckets, because your plants need plenty of room to grow, you don’t want them to be cramped. Next you need to go to a nursery and purchase your tomato plants. You don’t want to get too large of a plant, you can buy a determinate tomato plant, that stops growing after they reach a certain size, or indeterminate that will continue to grow and produce larger tomato plants. Two very popular indeterminate tomato plants are Big Beef and Better Boy, which are also very resistant to plant disease and will give you tomatoes for a longer period of time.

Now you’re ready to begin planting, make sure you put some holes in the bottom of your container for proper drainage. You don’t want your plant to become overwhelmed with excess water. Carefully remove the bottom few sets of leaves and place the plant in the container. Make sure you don’t use a flimsy, light weight container, because when your tomatoes are in bloom they may be top heavy and could cause the plant to topple. Tomatoes should be staked as early as possible, to prevent root disturbances caused by setting in the stake. Use a well mixed potting soil supplemented with plenty of organic matter to enrich the taste of your tomatoes. Ask at your neighborhood nursery for help in picking out the proper soil and fertilizer for in home planting.

Plants need plenty of sunlight, at least 6 to 8 hours a day. A grow light can be very beneficial in growing young plants, especially on cloudy days with limited sunlight. Be sure to water them daily, forgetting to water them for a couple of days and then starting to water them again, and then you once again forgetting; this rigorous process could delay the growth of your tomato plants. So please, be consistent with your care for them.

Tomato plant left to fend for itself will not only grow too many leaves and thus take too much space in your garden but also be more vulnerable to various diseases like funguses. It is absolutely necessary to prune your plants every week and learn how to correctly support them with the use of stakes and cages so that you can get the most out of your garden every year.

Next you will want to tie them in the case you are using stakes with a soft string such as soft yarn or something like that. Correct pruning is done by cutting out all of the leaves below the first flower cluster on the plants. You also want to make sure that each leave section has plenty of room to grow, and capture the sunshine. The plant needs the light to produce the sugars that are necessary for it to live.

When you see a plant that has yellowing leaves, the leaves have turned yellow because that section is using more sugar than it is producing. This is due to lack of sunshine in the case of outdoor plants, and still not enough light on those growing indoors. If you are taking proper care of your outdoor plants, you will get larger fruit from it, and it will steadily produce until the first frost occurs. That can turn into a LOT of tomatoes!

Some little things you need to consider too are:

1. The plants and leaves can’t touch the ground.2. You should not let too many stems branch out from the plant. Keeping them tied will take care of this.3. When the leaves are wet you can not tie the plant off.4. Your plants need plenty of room to grow healthy! It’s far better to have 50 plants that are thriving than to try to have a hundred plants that are cramped for space!5. Keep the plants pruned. It is far better for the plant to remove some of the leaves so that others can prosper.

Home-grown tomatoes are the absolute best tomatoes! Of that there is little doubt. That is why home gardeners so often decide to grow their own tomato plants. You need to know that the effort put into growing tomatoes is relatively minimal in compared to other fruits and vegetables. There’s absolutely nothing better than walking out to the garden to gather the makings of the freshest salad in the world!

There is a lot of talk about mulching your tomato plants, and the rest of your garden. This is a good thing, but don’t think you have to run to the local garden center and get a truckload of expensive mulch.

Mulching around your vegetable garden, or the rest of your garden for that matter, helps to retain moisture, which helps cut back on watering, which of course helps the environment stay green, but it doesn’t have to be the expensive bark mulch you can get in a rainbow of colors now, unless you are going for a trendy looking garden!

As long as you have not sprayed your lawn, and your lawn is not on any “drugs” you can bag your clippings as you cut your lawn, and use these around your tomato plants. Lawn clippings are full of nutrients. Or you can use that pile of dead leaves you have in your back corner, or hay from a local farm.

But the important thing to remember about mulching your tomato garden, is that you must wait until the soil reaches a good warm temperature, or else the mulch will insulate the cold in the soil.

Your tomato plants, need the soil to be warm to thrive, so depending on your climate, let the plants get a good start first, keep the weeds down, (weeds don’t seem to care what temperature the soil is!) , and make sure they get watered. As the temps start to rise overnight, and the soil gets warmer, then mulch. This will retain the heat in the soil as well as the moisture needed.

Plus as an added bonus, mulching tomato plants keeps those dreaded weeds down. I usually mulch to about 2 inches deep and then turn it into the ground in the fall. It also helps energize the soil for next years tomato crop.

Any tomato grower, will recognize this scenario, and promptly tell you “been there done that” in regards to the tomato garden.

Picture this: You have slaved over your vegetable garden all season, and have paid special attention to those tomato plants. Everything is great, you are just a few weeks off of harvesting a bumper tomato crop. You have dodged bugs, rodents, and all those critters that thought of your garden as a midnight buffet..

But along comes mother nature with the perfect storm. You know the thunderstorms of summer, with the heavy rains, whipping winds, and sometimes the dreaded hailstones.

You can’t do much about mother nature, but wait it out inside, and watch your tomato garden suffer. You hope that your tomatoes weather the storm, and you head out only to find a bunch of green tomatoes on the ground.

Here is what you do:

Pick up all the loose green tomatoes, check your plants for any damaged ones, and discard them so as to allow the plant the energies it needs to recover and ripen the other ones still on the vine.

Take your green tomatoes, and dry them off, find yourself a cardboard box, line it with newspapers, and lay your tomatoes in this box (with a bit of space for air around each one) Next put in a couple of ripening bananas (yellow but with a tinge of green still on them). The bananas will give off a gas that will help ripen your tomatoes. Cover with loose sheets of newspaper.

In about two weeks, you will have ripened tomatoes to enjoy, as well as your tomatoes from your prized tomato garden. Enjoy!

Farmers discovered years ago that tomatoes can grow really well if you plant them upside down. Today, there are plenty of good upside down planters on the market. The only problem is that they can be expensive. But, you can easily make an upside down tomato planter yourself.

First, you need a good sturdy bucket for each plant. You will need to grow your plant to at least four inches tall before you begin. We’ve used everything from one gallon ice cream buckets to five gallon paint buckets. The main thing your bucket needs is a good handle.

A lid is also preferable, but not really necessary. Cut a hole in the bottom of the bucket. Make it only an inch or two across, you don’t want your plant to fall out. Put some potting soil in the bucket, catching what falls out for future use. Gently position your tomato plant in the hole so that the roots are inside the bucket and the stems are sticking out of the bottom.

You may enlist some help for this step unless you already have somewhere to hang your bucket where you can still reach inside. Gently fill dirt little by little around the roots. Do not pack it tight. Wrap a strip of newspaper around the stem so that it is half-way in the dirt and half-way out. This keeps bugs that may climb around the bucket from climbing down the tomato plant. This trick also works for tomatoes planted in the ground.

Finish filling the bucket with dirt because upside down tomato plants can grow a lot of roots. Because gravity is pulling down on the plant, it will grow thick sturdy stalks that may curve up into the air. They will sprout more stems per stalk than a normal tomato plant and support a lot more weight. Hang your bucket somewhere that gets a lot of sun.

If you use a lid, cut a hole in it big enough for rain to enter. Your upside down tomato plant will not need as much water as one planted in the ground because it’s soil will not drain much. Tomatoes never touch the ground and can get sun all the way around. This helps them to ripen sooner and more evenly than traditional plants. The gravity and additional circulation also helps the tomato plant produce more tomatoes and bigger tomatoes.

You want to let the soil in your tomato plant become almost dry before you water it again. Tomatoes prefer an arid climate and too much water will produce flavorless, light-colored, grainy-fleshed tomatoes like you find in many super markets. Bark-like scars on your tomatoes are a sign that you haven’t over-watered and your tomatoes can hold up to five times the nutrients of over-watered tomatoes.

Use a hose reel to keep your hose stored for the long times between watering. With your tomatoes away from bugs and pests, you could have the harvest of a lifetime this summer!