Tips for Growing Healthy Tomatoes
With the price of vegetables on the rise, many homeowners choose to grow their own tomatoes. If you plant smart and take care of your plants correctly, you can enjoy tasty tomatoes
First of all, it’s important to know there are different types of tomato plants and they bloom at different times. If you want tomatoes all through the growing season, plant a variety of them. This way, when one type of tomato plant has finished blooming, another will still be producing tomatoes.
You can get a head start by purchasing seedlings to plant instead of seeds. When transplanting them into the soil, leave room for the plants to branch out as they grow. Plant them in an area where they’ll get lots of afternoon sun and give them plenty of water throughout the growing season.
Not watering them regularly can cause the plants to become stressed and hinder growth. Prune your tomato plants to remove any damaged or diseased areas and you should have beautiful tomatoes to enjoy for several months.
Square Foot Gardening
If you haven’t heard of square foot gardening, you’re about to learn one of the most useful and versatile gardening techniques ever created. Conceived by Mel Bartholomew, author of Square Foot Gardening
The basic concept is to start small – the unit of measure is the square foot. Although Bartholomew’s original square foot garden was four feet square, many schools, community gardens and home gardeners start even smaller – a couple of one square foot containers is plenty to get you started. According to Bartholomew though, a four square foot garden provides just enough harvest for one person.
How to Create A Square Foot Garden
Creating your own square foot garden is as easy as building (or buying) a box in which to garden. My own first square foot garden was a two square foot garden on the cement apron outside my back door in a city apartment. I used four square wicker plastic lined wicker wastebaskets bought for a dollar apiece at the All-for-a-Buck store. Any container that can hold 6-8” of dirt, and has drainage holes in the bottom will work. The biggest requirement for location is sun – choose a nice, sunny spot to place your garden.
Did I say dirt? Amend that. Bartholomew recommends what he calls ‘Mel’s mix’ instead of soil. Mix 1/3 vermiculite, 1/3 peat moss and 1/3 compost to fill the squares of your box or container. A 10 pound bag of each was plenty to fill my little 2 square foot garden.
Choosing and Laying Out the Plants for Your Square Foot Garden
The most important factor in laying out your garden is the one-square-foot grid. You’ll be planting one type of plant in each square – how many of them depends on the recommended spacing between plants – which you’ll find on the back of the seed packets. Depending on the needs of the specific seedlings, you can plant 1, 4, 9 or 16 plants in each square. To break it down - if the recommendation on the seed packet is 1 foot apart, you can plant 1 in a square. If they need six inches between plants, you can plant 4. Two inches gives you room for 9 plants, and one inch spacing means you can fit 16 plants into one square foot.
My own first square foot garden was a spaghetti garden with this layout:
1 Basil Plant 4 Tomato plants
1 Oregano Plant 16 Onion plants
After You Harvest Your Square Foot Garden
Harvest the crop in each square foot when it’s ready, and continue harvesting until it’s no longer producing fruit/vegetables. At that point, uproot the plants in that square (use them for compost!), and plant another, different crop. By refilling and rotating the crops, you avoid depleting the natural nutrients of the soil, and keep every bit of space productive throughout an entire growing season.