Growing your own food and having your own garden can be one of the most rewarding experiences in your life. However, it can also be incredibly frustrating if you can’t get your fruits and veggies to look or taste like what you want. Here are some super easy tips to help you grow amazing tomatoes!
Bright and Airy
Be aware of the space requirement that tomatoes have. Make sure you plant them somewhere bright and airy. Leave room between plants and make sure they’re in a spot in the yard that gets at least 10 hours of sunlight in the summer.
Watering
Tomatoes grow best when they are watered deeply but infrequently. Soak the bed about once a week and make sure you’re getting the water in the soil, not just sprinkling it on the leaves.
Prune Runts
While you may not like it, you will want to prune away any runt tomatoes that are growing on your plant. If you don’t, the plant will just waste energy keeping those runts alive. Instead, get rid of them so the plant can use the energy to make your other tomatoes better.
Fan Tomato Seedlings
If you’re starting your tomatoes inside, then make sure you put a fan on them every now and then. Tomatoes need to have good stems, and if they’re not grown outside then the lack of wind can make them weak. Put the fan on the seedlings for five to ten minutes twice a day to simulate wind and give them strong stems!
Heat Soil
Tomatoes love the heat. A few days (or even weeks) before you plant your tomatoes, preheat the soil so that it’s nice and warm for the tomatoes. Then, keep the soil heated with a black plastic top so your tomatoes can grow faster and better.
Plant Deep
This may seem strange, but when you’re first planting your tomato plant, bury it up to its top few leaves. This will allow roots to grow along the entire stem, making it stronger and more stable.
Mulch Later
It may be tempting, but don’t mulch your tomato plants sooner than you should. If you do it too early then it will cool the ground off and possible slow or even damage root growth.
Remove Bottom Leaves
The bottom leaves are the ones that are most likely to get fungal infections, so take precautions and remove them before they cause problems. The tomato plant needs lots of air and light, so these lower leaves won’t do much growing anyways.
Baking Soda
Baking soda is incredibly helpful when trying to grow tomatoes. First off, you can mix it into a spray that is effective at fighting off fungus. You can also add baking soda to the soil around the tomato plant which will sweeten the tomato.
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