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!

Because of the recession many people have decided to grow their own fruits and vegetables at home. Growing your tomatoes can save you money, provide a steady supply of chemical, free fruit and give you a little exercise to boot. Tomatoes will not grow by themselves. They need special care and attention before and during the growing process. Here are some guidelines to follow when growing tomatoes.

Planting tomatoes:

Plant the tomatoes deep in the ground with only the top leaves sticking up. This will allow the plant to be hardier and the roots will grow on the stem and branch out allowing the growing tomato to establish itself much easier.  Space the plants two to four feet apart for easy access to the growing tomatoes. This spacing is especially helpful when caring and harvesting the fruit. Stake the toms when first planted to avoid damage to the roots and plant.

General care for growing tomatoes:

Growing tomatoes like fertilizer that is richer in phosphorous and potassium than nitrogen. A food mixture of 5-10-10 would work best for the plant. Mix the fertilizer into the soil about two weeks before planting. Water regularly and never allow the ground to dry out. Instead of a light watering several times a week, a good a good soak once a week using enough water to penetrate about 6 inches below the soil is best.

Harvesting:

When growing tomatoes keep in mind they are sun-loving plants. The time it takes to for them to ripen depends on the variety you have chosen. There are types that take ninety days to reach full maturity. A tomato is ripe when it is the color of the variety you have chosen to grow. The color should be consistent throughout the fruit.

Pests and Disease:

It is safe to say you’ll experience garden pests. The best you can do is keep your eyes open and inspect your plant regularly. Once you have identified a pest problem a solution can be found at a local gardening store.

If you are new to tomato gardening, and don’t know where to start. Start small.

Container gardens, are the perfect starter gardens, as you have more control, and the garden will not get away from you, the way a large one can. I am sure it has happened to all of us at one time or another, it certainly happened to me. Vegetable gardens, especially tomato gardens are a lot of work, but rewarding.

You get excited to grow tomatoes, and dig up a big patch, only to realize, that this needs weeding, mulching and tending to, through the hot days, as well as lots of water. Plus a bumper crop of tomatoes you now need to deal with. If you are not sure if this is for you, then start much smaller.

Instead of this situation, try growing tomatoes in containers. Get four good sized containers, that you can handle, and us a quality potting mix, with good drainage, in each one. The reason I say four containers, is that you should also try four varieties of tomato plants to grow, One plant in each container.

This way, you can see which tomato is best for you, some plants are hardier than others, but one thing is for sure, the weeding and care of containers is no where near as time consuming. You may only have four plants, but you will get a good supply of tomatoes for your family, and some different varieties to try. Like taste testing!

After you harvest your tomatoes, you can decide if a tomato garden, or vegetable garden is for you. Then decide your plan of action for next year.

Container gardens for food, such as tomato plants, have become more popular, especially if you live in a small place, or only have a balcony. You can still enjoy the taste of a fresh picked tomato without all the work. Just remember to keep track of the varieties you grow, so that you can choose the best one for next year, or try four more.

Add a couple of small flowers, and you not only have food, but beauty as well to enjoy.

One of the easiest plants to grow and from which you can reap fast rewards is the ever popular tomato.

With just a little planning and not much hard work, you’ll find growing tomatoes will satisfy your sense of achievement. They can be grown almost anywhere, in containers, greenhouses, balconies or the garden bed.

You can start them from seed easily; the varieties and choices you have to suit your tastebuds are endless, and you can expect abundant harvests, with few guidelines to follow. Home-grown tomatoes taste a lot better than commercially grown ones because you can pick and eat them fresh from the plant. You can get a better quality, tasting tomato from the seed catalogues and they give you a much wider range of tomatoes than any supermarket could possibly offer. The descriptions will help you find tomatoes that are exceptional and suited to your taste and environment.

You can start from seed or seedlings, why not experiment with both if you’re a novice. If you are starting from seed then sow them indoors several weeks before you expect the last frost in your area and they will be ready to transplant outdoors when the soil warms up. Aim to give them a minimum six hours of sunshine. Prepare the soil, ensuring that it is well drained. To give a flying start to your season adding mushroom compost to the soil which works wonders for the seedlings.

When transplanting seedlings, bury all the seedling stem below the ground, leaving only the top leaves exposed. This encourages roots to grow the full length of the stem, which is below soil level, giving you a large root system. This in turn gives you larger healthier fruit and is a little trick my grandfather taught me; works fantastic too.

If your particular plant requires staking, put the stake in the hole first to save damage to the rooting system. Be sure to water your plants as soon as you have transplanted them, you can use a seaweed fertilizer at this point.

When growing tomatoes make sure the conditions remain constant throughout the growing season, that means maintain a moist soil and do not let them dry out as you risk them being exposed to the disease blossom end rot, or you may find that the fruit will crack. Check the soil regularly; cheap gauges are readily available for this purpose. On the other hand don’t over water as waterlogged soil causes fungal diseases.

When growing tomatoes keep a sharp eye out for the first flowers to appear, you can then use a liquid fertilizer every couple of weeks and a little potash can be added at this stage. Do not make the mistake of thinking the more fertilizer the better; this will only result in excess foliage growth and reduced fruit production.

When the weather warms up use organic mulch around your plants to save precious water; to encourage more root growth and a stronger plant you can build the level of the mulch right up to the level of the bottom leaves.

If you have no garden or limited space then all is not lost; you can grow tomatoes in pots or containers; there are many miniature and cherry varieties to choose from. A 16 – 20 inch pot is about right, just use a potting mixture instead of soil. Remember to check your pots regularly for water as they will dry out quickly, especially in summer. A self watering container makes the job easier and if you can install a tap on the balcony, it would save carrying water through your apartment. Don’t limit yourself to tomatoes, with a little thought you can grow lots of other things like herbs, lettuce, egg plants, etc. just by using containers.

Every tomato grower has a “secret recipe” for tomato growing success. An integral part of high tomato yield is proper plant nutrition. Plants need food, too! Giving a plant the right food at the right time will not only increase fruit yield, it will also help prevent damage from diseases and pests.

Plant Nutrients

Plants do not eat hamburgers and French fries, but they do still need “nutrients.” Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium are the three nutrients most commonly fed to plants. Most fertilizers are a combination of the three. When reading a fertilizer package, a three number series such as 3-0-3, or 15-10-5, presents the ratio of all three nutrients in the fertilizer. Other nutrients and minerals, in smaller amounts, help tomato plants grow robustly and healthily. Plants get nutrients from the soil in which they are planted, so soil preparation is integral to providing plant nutrients in proper amounts.

To determine which nutrients your garden soil needs to promote healthy plant growth, prepare a soil sample and send it to your local cooperative extension office for analysis. The soil sample will allow you to properly prepare the garden soil and add just enough of each lacking nutrient to grow healthy plants. Another important test is the soil pH. Soil pH affects the way plants are able to take in nutrients. If your soil is too high or too low, you will want to amend the pH by adding mulch (to increase acidity) or lime (to increase alkalinity.)

When to Add Nutrients

Tomato plants need nutrients at differing amounts at various stages of growth. After receiving soil test results and before planting tomatoes, work a general fertilizer into the soil. Ratios of 5-10-10 or 8-16-16 are good to start. The soil test results will tell you if you are seriously lacking one nutrient or another.

Once the plant begins growing, different ratios of nutrients promote best growth. Once the plant starts flowering, it needs a higher ratio of potassium.

Soil Composition for Plant Nutrition

Adding fertilizer is only one step to providing plants with proper nutrients and increasing crop yield. Soil composition and structure directly affects tomato plant health. Tomato plants thrive by growing roots deep into the soil. Hard clay soils must be broken and amended with compost to promote healthy root growth. Overly sandy soils need addition of organic matter in order to hold water and nutrients.

Compost for High Fruit Yield

Organic matter is an essential component of soil. Adding proper organic matter will greatly improve soil health, while adding improper organic matter is detrimental to soil. Organic matter can be added by top dressing or double digging. Top dressing with organic works exactly as it sounds-you add organic matter to the top of the soil, almost like a mulch. Double-digging requires digging and removing soil, mixing the organic matter into the soil, and replacing the newly combined soil.

Great organic matters are already composted, or broken down. As wood chips, leaves and other compost breaks down, it uses nitrogen. It is important to add composted organic matter rather than fresh, as fresh matter will remove essential nutrients from the soil. If fresh organic matter is all that is available, be sure to add nitrogen along with the organic matter.

Soil composition is one key to tomato growing success. Structure, pH, and nutrient availability all contribute to plant health. For more detailed information on soil health and how to manage nutrition (including diagnosing nutrient deficiencies), consult a comprehensive tomato growing reference such as How to Grow Tasty Juicy Tomatoes.