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Growing Tomatoes
Determinate plants are bush types that will ripen the majority of the fruit within a very few days. All the fruit ripens – bang – all at once. This is great if you are using them for canning or freezing or doing some form of processing with them. You get a ton of fruit when you need it. Or, at least you get a ton of fruit when the plants say they’re ready. There will be a few stragglers coming along afterwards but the bulk of the crop will ripen together. This kind of growth is best suited for sprawling plant growing (see below). Indeterminate plants ripen in sequence. The first fruit set ripens before the second set; each set lower down on the stem ripens before the next higher one. This kind of growth is best suited for staking and fresh eating. This plant will continue to ripen and set fruit until frost knocks on your garden door. So, to complicate things a bit... Before you plant, there is a basic decision to be made. Do you have an abundance of garden space to let them sprawl or are you restricted so you have to stake them? Sprawling plants yield more per plant but staked fruit yield more per square foot of garden space (you can crowd tomatoes a bit when staking). Cages are an intermediate form of staking and quite frankly, I don’t think they give the benefits of either. They do have their proponents but frankly, I’m not one of them. I either like the anarchy of the sprawling patch or the tightly controlled growing habits of the staked and pruned plant. Cages do let you see the ripening fruit. Do set your cages deeply into the garden soil; I see more heavily weighted cages collapsing under the weight of a mature tomato plant than I want to share.
Staked plants can be grown on 12 to 18 inch centers with rows 3 feet across. The rule of thumb is that each plant gets one square foot of growing space around it on all sides if you’re growing it straight up. So, determinate plants do much better when left to sprawl or when grown in cages and indeterminate plants do better when staked. Is there special care needed if I let my plants sprawl? No. Just plant, water, take care of pests and harvest. Pretty simple really. In growing tomatoes, how do your prune staked plants? As my tomatoes grow up the stakes, I tie them to the stake every six inches with binder twine. While I have some left over from the farm, any thick twine or old pantyhose will do well. You simply want to avoid cutting into the stem with thin supports. I pick a single leader – a single stem – to train to the stake and I remove all other branches. You’ll often see a “sucker” trying to grow from between the stem and a big leaf. Pinch all these suckers off and only allow the main stem to grow.
Fruit will develop on this main stem and you’ll be able to harvest four to five fruit sets from your growing tomatoes before frost (depending on your location you might even get more) The plant will easily reach six feet tall in decent soil. I usually "top" (cut off the leader) when it gets that tall and while I still pick off any suckers, the research shows that the upper fruit sets will ripen faster if you “top” your plants a month before you are going to destroy your plants (or frost is going to destroy your plants). Tomatoes require weekly watering. Remember if you are growing tomatoes that this fruit is 95%+ water and if you withhold water, you create physiological disease problems as well as small fruit. Tomatoes do really well on an organic soil and working several shovels of compost into the soil around the base of each plant before planting is a good idea. Weekly or bi-weekly feedings of a fish emulsion will produce bumper crops. Growing tomatoes isn't difficult, it simply takes a bit of attention to details. Click here for free newsletter or to ask about growing tomatoes
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