bjones
|
When I was younger, I moved around a lot, and I didn’t always have a lot of yard space. I grew up having a full garden, but when I didn’t have room for a garden, you can be assured that I always found ground enough for tomatoes. Tomatoes are fun to grow and they produce a lot of fruit, rewarding you with a bountiful harvest for your time and attention.
If you want to start tomatoes from seed, that’s fine, but I have never done so. You can buy seedlings at a discount gardening center like Target or Walmart for next to nothing in the early spring. Check your forecasts and almanacs first to make sure no more frosts are expected before planting. Tomatoes like a warm bed, so some people cover their planting spot with black plastic a couple weeks before planting. This raises the ground temperature and gets some good moisture built up underneath. When you are ready to plant, the seedlings should go deep into the ground, up to the bottom leaves. The plants will develop roots along the stem under the ground. This will make sure they have all the support they will need when they get bigger.
Tomatoes need a lot of water to develop. They also need the water at regular intervals. You can’t skip a week and try to catch up. The fruit will not develop as well, or at all, this way. It can also lead to rot. Once the fruit develops, though, you can hold off on the water a little. Withholding water will make for sweeter, tastier tomatoes. If the leaves start wilting, though, you’ve withheld too much.
 Posted 5409 day ago
|