Tomato gardening advice?

Sarah R asks: Tomato gardening advice?
I live in Eastern North Carolina, and I decided a little bit late in the season to attempt growing tomatoes for the first time. At the end of July, I purchased a fully grown tomato plant. Within a couple of weeks flowers started showing up, but within 2 weeks or so, those flowers fell off. Since it was late August at that point, I gave up hope. But in mid-September, flowers started growing, and a couple of weeks later, tomatoes started growing. Now it is mid-October, and I have about 10 tomatoes on my plant. They have not started turning red yet, but they keep on getting bigger. With the weather cooling off, I am desperate for advice on my plant. Is there any way to protect my plant from the cool weather, in hopes of saving the tomatoes?

Any advice is greatly appreciated!

Thanks!!
My plant is in a pot, not in the ground.

The answer voted best is:

Answer by Rottie Mom
Water the plant before an expected cold snap, then cover it with a piece of fabric. I bought a bolt of felt to use for covering plants. It’s usually 72″ wide, so it’ll cover fairly tall plants. .

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I think one of my tomato plants has blossom end rot?

tasha l asks: I think one of my tomato plants has blossom end rot?
I read it may be from a calcium deficiency my first question is would it effect only 1 plant? Only 1 is like this. Could it be the epsom salt I used ? I used a bit in the soil when I first transplanted my seedlings I also use guano gro an organic fertilizer and rabbit manure. my 3rd question is if it is a calcium problem can I use the same calcium on the plant that I feed to my reptiles? should I apply it to the surrounding soil or to the foliage? would it hurt to try this just to see if I get results? I haven’t tested my soil all of my other veggies are doing very good and I have very minimal bug problems. (I have an organic garden so there are a few pests but not many) thanks for any pointers! sorry this is so drawn out I’m a first timer so any advice is appreciated.

The answer voted best is:

Answer by Jimbo
Garden Safe brand makes a spray for this. What you probably have is botrytis, a type of bud rot. Any veggie safe garden spray for botrytis will help, and most contain sulphur, which is fine for edibles. Sulphur is widely used on grapes and other crops. Good Luck!

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4 Tomato Growing Tips To Think About When Asking, “when Should I Plant Tomatoes?”

4 Tomato Growing Tips To Think About When Asking, “when Should I Plant Tomatoes?”

Luckily most garden centers are a lot better than the retail stores and s you will not find tomato plants out for sale in the middle of winter. Other tomato gardening supplies and seed packs will be out as soon as all the red Valentine’s Day stock is taken down. The question always seems to be , “When should I plant tomatoes?” You will find that after reading tomato gardening tips in your gardening books and what you find online, it really boils down to 4 basic things.

4 questions and growing tomato gardening tips and suggestions for, “When should I plant tomatoes? “:

If you are lucky enough to live in a year round growing season, it doesn’t matter! You can easily stagger your tomato planting so that you will have new fresh plants replacing the old ones. Juicy tomatoes all year is a luxury to appreciate! For the rest of the people, you can plant when the danger of frost has past. Some places that will mean early spring, others in May or early June. Your garden center will have a chart to use as a guide. If you watch the weather carefully, you can plant a few weeks before that date.

Heavy, clumpy soil will simply not work with tomatoes. You need to cultivate the dirt each year by turning it over, raking, working in compost and fertilizers, and get it nice and loose. You also should not plant your tomatoes in the same place they were last year. Fresh nutrients in the soil are as important as the texture.

The optimum situation for planting tomatoes is two to three days after it rains. The soil will be nice and moist, but not clumpy, and it will be easy to work with, A hot and dry spring will mean you need to gently soak the dirt with a sprinkler for several hours the day before you plant.. Other tomato gardening tips for planting will tell you not to transplant in the hot sun. Seeds love the hot sun, but not plants.. The sun will cause the plants to wilt. If you plant in late afternoon at least give it overnight to adjust or devise some kind of temporary shade for a day or two.

Busy people who are working or have lots of commitments will often just have to do it when they have the time. It is a good idea to have a Plan A and alternate Plan B for when the weather does not cooperate with your schedule. Get the plants ahead of time, keep them watered and in the shade, so they will be ready when you are..

When should I plant tomatoes? Follow these four planting tomato gardening tips and suggestions and you should have a good tomato growing season.

5 Tips In Growing Tomato Plants

5 Tips In Growing Tomato Plants

Growing tomato plants is an enjoyable and worthwhile experience that will give you a good gardening experience. It will also provide you fresh tomatoes whenever you need it. There are many health benefits that you can get from tomatoes especially if it comes right from your own .garden. Tomatoes are grown differently. Some tomato suppliers use organic fertilizers on their tomato but there are also those that use fertilizers laden with chemicals that are harmful to your body. Therefore, having a tomato garden in your home will give you assurance that your tomatoes are organic and fresh.

The challenge in having a tomato garden is not in growing it. Tomatoes are resilient plants which can basically grow in any climate and soil type. What is difficult however is choosing the right tomato variety to plant since there are hundreds of varieties that you can choose from. Here’s how you can make things easy.

1. Choose a determinate variety of tomato. Determinate tomatoes require less maintenance such as pruning or staking. They also require less space in your garden plot. This means that you will be able to plant more tomatoes in a single plot using a determinate variety rather than the indeterminate variety.

2. There are many hybrid tomatoes that you can purchase at your local garden depot. These hybrid tomato varieties are easy to grow and are inherently resistant to various diseases. Although some do not like hybrid tomatoes because of its bland taste, there are pure strain hybrids that taste as good as natural tomatoes.

3. Plant tomatoes seedlings instead of saplings. This will give you the experience in dealing with the various problems related to having a tomato garden. These seedlings are available in your local nursery. The local nursery can also advice you on which variety is best for your garden and how to grow them. You can also get essential gardening tips from the experts at your local garden center such as tips that can help you minimize plant deterioration and maximize growth.

4. Start small. Instead of putting up a gardening plot, plant your tomatoes in containers first. This way you can plant more than one variety and organize each variety easily. You can use various soil types that are ideal for each tomato variety you are planting. You can also easily transfer the pots or containers to expose your tomatoes to sunlight if needed. When choosing a container, just make sure it is big enough to accommodate the growth of the tomatoes.

5. Do not just use any fertilizer, use organizer fertilizers. Tomatoes that are grown using organic fertilizers are known to have a longer shelf life, healthier and tastes better than those who are grown in an inorganic way.

Following the 5 tips above will help you have fresh and healthy tomatoes in your own backyard in no time.

Can anyone advise on container gardening for tomato plants?

redneckwoman822 asks: Can anyone give me advice on container gardening for tomato plants?
I live in Illinois and I love home grown tomatoes. I don’t have the yard for a garden and would like to try growing them in a container. I’ve tried it in the past without good results and I’m hoping somone will have some good advice to get me started this year.

The answer voted best is:

Answer by Aj~
i know what u mean… i did alright but had major problems w/ tom. worms. This year i found at Home Depot & Walmart.. patio tomatoes.. We have 3 & they r doing really well & so far ( knock on wood) no worms. ( i keep a close eye) we even have a tom. starting so we r excited. I hate store bought tom. They jst don’t taste the same.

I have them in 12″ pots & they bush tom.. Golliath… in partical sun. I live in heat.. 115o & i keep them watered every day & sometimes twice. If they look wilted i’ll move more in the shade more for the day. But so far so good. I’ve had them 30day & less. ( my pup ate the other one so we had to move them UP on a table) I planted them in Miracle Grow Gardening Soil that has feeding in them plus i jst bought some continuous feeding food as well.

I hope u can get some now b/c the season is almost gone for garden plants. They need to b in the ground or pots rt during after Memorial day.. ( i had a hard time finding to replace after the pup ate them but finally did ) So run & ck u’r garden spots.

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Tomato Gardening

Tomato Gardening

Tomatoes are in my opinion the best fruit vegetable there is. Cherry tomatoes with their sweet and tangy taste can be eaten whole. As they are small in size you can just pop them in your mouth. Tomatoes give salads a dash of red color. Pasta and pizza are made even tastier with fresh tomato sauce poured over them. And these are just some of the benefits you will get from tomato gardening.

While tomatoes come in many different shapes, sizes and colors there are actually only two varieties of tomatoes. One is the Determinates and the other is the Indeterminates. Determinate tomatoes grow on vines that stop growing at a certain point. These tomato plants are small and compact vines that produce fruits early in the growing season. Determinates tomatoes plants can be grown in containers or even in small spaces.

The best way to grow Determinates is to space them out about 1 to 2 feet apart. The tomato rows need to have a distance of 4 feet between them. With determinate tomato gardening if you wish to plant any other vegetables near the tomatoes, then you will need to keep some additional space around those tomato rows.

Indeterminates tomatoes on the other hand continue growing. They need support in the form of cages or trellises. The distance that you should keep between the cages is about 3 feet. Once the Indeterminate tomatoes have caught on to the trellis or their cage, you will need to train them to climb the supporting frame. Sometimes it will be necessary to tie the vines to the frame stakes so that the whole tomato plant does not fall over due to its own weight.

You can start your tomato gardening with seeds or starter plants brought from nurseries. The best new tomato plants are those without any yellow speckling on their leaves. The other thing to check is to make sure that your plant roots are not coming out of the containers bottom. The root’s growth can tell if your plant will grow successfully or if it will be stressed out and produce a poor harvest. For the best growth to be made, a good vegetable gardening tip is to see that your soil is a rich, sandy loam type of soil.

The best time to start tomato gardening is when all of the other trees in your garden are fully in leaf. By this time the season will be warm and your acclimatized tomato plants will receive about 8 hours or more of life giving sunlight. The roots of the tomatoes should be fully embedded within their soil bed. This lets the tomato receive all the nutrients that it can from the soil.

With tomato gardening you need to keep an eye on the weather. Hot sunny days might be great for you, but they mean that your tomato plants will need regular watering at least once a week. Other than this you can sit back and relax. Once your tomatoes are fully ripe, just pluck them off the vines and enjoy your fresh tomatoes.

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Tomato Planting Tips That Lead To Healthy Tomato Plants

Tomato Planting Tips That Lead To Healthy Tomato Plants

You can’t use ‘magic’ to gain healthy tomato plants. You need time, patience, and hard work to ensure that you’re able to give your plants the right tomato plant care and make them live longer and healthier so they can give you juicy fruits. Below are several gardening tips and tricks, specifically tomato planting tips that, when followed, will make you feel like an expert gardener, not to mention, enable you to have ripe and juicy tomatoes on your dining table:

If you’re a first timer when it comes to planting tomato seeds, you have to keep in mind that you should not crowd the seeds if you wish for them to grow into healthy tomato plants. If the seeds are planted too close to each other, their growth will be thwarted and may even cause them to die early, or worse, not even develop leaves. Planting them a few inches away from each other is part of effective gardening tips and tricks. Included in tomato plant care instructions is also for you to transplant the little plants e.g. ones that sprout 2 – 4 leaves for them not to fight over nutrients, water, and sunlight.

One of the tomato planting tips to be followed is also to prepare good soil and compost prior to planting. Adding in some fertilizer, to be specific, one of organic variety is also highly recommended if you desire healthy tomato plants. When purchasing fertilizers, make sure to read the instructions and follow them to the letter so as not to burn or kill the roots.

Proper tomato plant care also means making certain that your plants receive a sufficient amount of light, either from the sun or from artificial lighting (grow lights). If you have an outdoor garden, then, you won’t have sunlight shortage problems, except in winter. For gardeners who have their plants indoors, fluorescent grow lights will surely do the trick, as long as the young plants are left under the grow lighting for more than 10 hours.

Other tomato planting tips that help bring about healthy tomato plants also include: watering the plants regularly e.g. on a weekly basis; seeing to it that the soil is moist and NOT wet; getting rid of aphids or white flies as they can really damage your plants; among others. These are just some of the most effective tomato plant care techniques that you should perform if you wish to have juicy and sweet tomatoes on your table.

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Does Staking Tomatoes Bring More Tomato Gardening Problems Than It Helps?

Does Staking Tomatoes Bring More Tomato Gardening Problems Than It Helps?

When you drive by a large field with tomatoes growing in them, you never even once see stakes. So why do backyard gardeners feel they need to stake their tomato plants, if they can get plenty of tomatoes without bothering? Why do the tomato gardening tips and advice from the pros tell you to do it? As with most things there are advantages and disadvantages for using stakes or cages to solve tomato gardening problems.

One of the real advantages of staking the tomatoes or using one of those specially designed tomato cages is that it takes up much less room in your garden than if you let them spread all over the ground the way the large growers do in their fields. Stakes allow folks growing container tomatoes on their patio or deck to do so without an unruly mess. Stakes and cages work well when you do not have a garden but want just a few juicy tomatoes to put on sandwiches. Then you can fit them in around the house in your flower beds.

A second advantage of using stakes has to do with rot and disease. Tomatoes on the ground can get too moist and never have a chance to dry out, and that results in rotten tomatoes. This is especially true after a rain since where the tomato is resting on the ground; it gets too moist and moldy. You would have to keep the mulch fresh, several times a week, to prevent this. Stakes and cages get the tomatoes up off the ground where the sun can hit them. It is helpful to read more on disease up in a tomato gardening tips guide.

There is definitely an advantage when it is easier to see the tomato plant. This helps to control the unwieldy growth when they are staked or in cages. You want most of the nutrients to get to the tomato, and not the leaves, so snipping off extra leaves and pruning any unnecessary shoots will keep the vine itself stronger and the tomatoes a chance to grow juicier.

A disadvantage to using stakes is the time it takes to maintain them. You need to keep the stakes firmly anchored, the plant anchored to the stake, all the main shoots tied up. Each and every day old shoots need readjusted or tied again, new shoots will need attached. When it is dry the stakes and cages will come lose from the soil and they are hard to keep anchored in the ground.

A companion downside that goes with the first one is that the whole thing will probably fall over anyway during one of the summer thunderstorms. Even the cages can fall over if the plant gets too top heavy. Once they fall over and the vine is bent, it is tricky to get it put back up and everything tied up again and the cages anchored into a new spot.

If your backyard garden is large enough, and you have a steady supply of mulch to keep your tomatoes as dry as possible, you certainly can forgo the stakes and cages and let the vines spread on their own. Other tomato gardening tips will tell you to use a raised bed, that is easier to reach and keep it mulched Most people however need to solve their tomato gardening problems of limited space, and disease by using stakes or cages for their juicy tomato crop to flourish.

Tomato Gardening- 5 Tips To Grow These Luscious Fruits At Home

Tomato Gardening- 5 Tips To Grow These Luscious Fruits At Home

The following tips is all you need to know for growing a bountiful of beautiful tomatoes. Gardening tomatoes are not at all difficult, all it requires are some attention and care while you get started. Most tomato varieties require just the same or slightly different strategies for effective produce hence tips for gardening tomatoes is the same for all types and varieties.

The tips to be followed for gardening tomatoes, both indoors as well as outdoors are given below. They are very effective by being organic in nature so as to prevent concerns about using pesticides or herbicide in the garden

*The plant should be deep inside the gravel of the garden or the container. Make sure that the entire roots are two or three inches inside the soil. This should be ensured specially if a tomato variety is of the large type. If the tomato plants are rooted shallow they will require support or staking as it will fall over when it starts to bear fruit. The best of tips from the gardening experts on tomato are to see that the seedling is buried up to the last bottom leaves.

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*Plant the tomatoes under direct or indirect sunlight and also in moist soil. The soil should be damp but not water saturated. Watch out for signs of the leaves appearing dry or curling in which case the plant needs more water. This requires immediate attention.

* Prior to farming, Stake or tomato cages are to be placed around the plants so as to prevent the plant from falling over or being uprooted. This tip should be given due importance. Also gardening tomatoes require advanced planning to ensure that the plant matures properly.

To begin with the quality of the seed is of utmost importance. It is important to find out what are the varieties that grow best and in which soil and stay with what works best. The Heirloom varieties of tomatoes are a good option to plant as this variety has a natural immunity to most type of soil. It also has a natural immunity to plant insects and plant diseases.

* Do mulch around the tomato plant. It’s a must even when it is planted inside a container. Mulching will prevent weed growing around while conserving the moisture.

*The leaves at the bottom of the tomato plant needs to be removed as they start ageing. The first signs of ageing appear on the bottom leaves as brown spots, moulds or fungus. This is because the moisture levels vary at the bottom of the plant and the absence of enough sunshine on these leaves.

These tomato gardening tips and techniques are for keeping the plants healthy and to get a bountiful yield. For an interesting start up its better to try the heirloom variety or the yellow and even the purple variety of tomatoes. The tips and advice for tomato gardening and the strategies will all be the same for different varieties of tomatoes and of course for the standard varieties most gardeners love growing.

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Top Vegetable Gardening Tips For Tomato Growing

Top Vegetable Gardening Tips For Tomato Growing  

Vegetable gardening tips for tomato growing are readily available. Most gardeners are happy to share their tomato growing tips and even non-gardeners who attempt to grow tomatoes every spring will offer advice. The difficulty for the novice tomato grower comes in trying so sort the valuable vegetable gardening tips for tomato growing from the old wives’ tales.

One of the best sources for vegetable gardening help is a local nursery. Buying plants at a supermarket or a chain store with garden center may allow you to purchase plants at a cheaper price, but it is unlikely that the staff in these stores know a great deal about gardening. For reliable vegetable gardening help, visit a local nursery. Many nurseries carry plants that they themselves have grown from seed, and they will be knowledgeable about each variety of plant and can advise on local conditions.

Local Garden Club

Most towns have a local garden club and meeting together with other gardeners is a great way to obtain vegetable gardening help and improve your knowledge. Other gardeners from your locality will have abundant information about the requirements of vegetables in your zone. When you enlist the aid of gardeners that are local to your area, you will get vegetable gardening help that you can use because these gardeners understand the unique needs of your particular zone.

Local garden clubs often run workshops or classes on topics ranging from composting, to growing a particular variety of heirloom vegetable, to pest control in the garden. Many often sponsor projects such as community gardens which can provide gardening space to those who live in apartments and have no garden space of their own. and taking part in an altruistic endeavor with your fellow garden club members is a fantastic way to learn all sorts of gardening secrets and tips.

Even if you don’t join a garden club taking part in some workshops will provide you with an opportunity to meet fellow gardeners and form friendships with people with a common interest.

The County Extension Office

Another top resource for vegetable gardening advice is your local county extension office. They specialize in solving the gardening problems unique to your local environment. They can perform soil tests, identify plants and diseases and sometimes supply free seeds or plants

Once you’ve gained some gardening knowledge it’s time to get your hands dirty.

Tomatoes and other vegetables are easy to grow if you start with good soil. Before you plant your garden, till the soil to about a depth of ten inches and dig in some well rotted compost or other organic material. Complete this step several weeks before you want to plant your tomatoes.

For a larger garden, you can rent a tiller, but for a small garden space you can use a gardening fork to dig in the compost.