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Ten Tips for Top Tomatoes Rule 1: Pests Need to Have Pests: There are many pests that might bother your tomatoes. You won’t find any of them to be a problem if you set up your garden ecosystem the right way with lots of water, and flowers that attract the parasites of tomato pests like year-round native flowers, and flowering cilantro, dill, fennel, mint, buckwheat and more. Rule 2: Give Birds Other Food & Water: Birds eat an enormous number of insects and continually provide free “chicken manure” for the garden, but some of them - especially the mockingbird - will eat enormous numbers of some fruits, especially if they learn to. Birds usually attack tomatoes because they are thirsty and rarely because they are hungry. All birds are thirsty if they go without water or moisture from insects, fruit, or flowers. So give them fresh clean water in a shallow birdbath safe from predators and they will prefer it to occasional tomato juice! Rule 3: Don’t Grow Soil Diseases: If you do not ever till the soil and put three inches of quality mulch down once a year, the soil’s micro-organisms will devour virtually all the disease organisms, and your plants will flourish. Years of mulch will cultivate a soil food web high in predatory microbes such as nematode eating and fungus eating nematodes. Rule 4:Create Good Drainage:Tomato roots that sit under water for even 15 minutes will suffer with reduced production or even death. In warm wet conditions, fungi such as Phytophora will spread, infect roots and kill. So unless you have sandy soil, it is essential to grow in beds raised 8 inches. Rule 5: Get Large Transplants:Tomatoes need to be transplanted into the garden because it is too cold in the garden to grow them from seed in early winter and it is too hot in the garden to easily grow them from seed in early summer. Small transplants, however, often get eaten by snails and other pests or just die in the February cold or August heat. So you need to do one of three things: grow them into large transplants (12 inches is nice) by the proper time for your area, or buy costlier ones at the few garden centers that have them at the right time, or buy them even earlier and grow them to a bigger size in a bigger pot. Rule 6: Plant at the Right Time It is absolutely essential to plant tomatoes at the right time in your area. Tomatoes like the same temperatures as we do (60-80?F). Tomatoes grow poorly above 90? or below 60?. More importantly, flowers fruit when the pollen is fertile, and that is only between 55-70? night temperatures and 60?-85? day temperatures. At other times, they fall off without leaving fruit. A key strategy therefore is to plant seeds and transplants so the plants will heavily blossom at times in the spring and fall when temperatures are good. Rule 7: Fertilize Correctly:In older fertile soils, put about one handful of balanced organic fertilizer in the square foot where the plant will go and scratch it into the first two inches of the soil. Fertilize new soil with about one cup per square foot of balanced organic fertilizer. Balanced organic fertilizers do an excellent job of providing what is needed. Put the plant in so that only the leaves are above the ground line. When the first small tomato is found on the plant, throw another handful of fertilizer around the base of the plant and water it in. Rule 8: Give Tomatoes Proper Support: Tomatoes must be kept off the ground so that the branches avoid mashing together, creating moisture and rot. Rule 9: Protect from Bad Weather: As we mentioned earlier, it is important to keep spring plants warm until night temperatures are over 55°. If a freeze is expected, harvest light green, pink, or red tomatoes. They will ripen indoors if away from sun and vermin. Leave the dark green in case there isn’t a freeze. Rule 10: Dead Ripe Tomatoes: Most tomatoes should be deep red when you eat them and never refrigerated. Oh yes—there are thousands of varieties; they all grow here if you follow the ten tips, and they all taste good. Enjoy! |