Tomatoes for Beginners

If you could only grow one kind of plant in your vegetable garden, what would it be? Ask most gardeners and they'd tell you tomatoes. Why? The difference in taste between store bought tomatoes and fresh ones out of your garden is night and day. If you've never enjoyed a sun ripe tomato right off the vine, then you're really missing out. However, for the new gardener there really are some things you should know to enjoy tomato growing success.

First, buy plants, not seeds. The growing season here in PA isn't long enough to grow them outside from seeds. When you get used to growing store bought plants, then you can try starting them from seeds in winter to plant out in spring.

Second, there are dozens and dozens of kinds of tomatoes. To clear it up for you, in my way of thinking there are three different kinds. You have your grape or cherry tomatoes that are little fruits that are delicious eaten whole or cooked. Then, there are the roma tomatoes. I don't really enjoy eating these and they're really best for making sauce. Finally, you have your traditional large tomatoes that are delicious and great for everything.

When selecting your plants, look for healthy, green plants. My personal preference is to buy an early season non determinate variety like Early Girl tomatoes which you can find everywhere. They will start providing tomatoes in July and continue producing them till the first frost.

Third, when you plant your tomatoes, bury them up to the first set of leaves, feed them a general purpose fertilizer (I use Espoma Garden Tone) and mulch generously. Keep the plant well watered till it starts to grow new leaves. I also like to pinch off any flowers it produces until June so the plant will grow in size first. Oh, and this is really important, tomatoes NEED sun. At LEAST 6 hours a day.

Mulch is really important for tomatoes. It keeps weeds down, preserves water, and prevents tomatoes rotting from resting on the ground. I prefer straw mulch myself but bark mulch or shredded leaves would work too.

Be careful not to plant tomatoes too early in the Spring. An unprotected tomato plant at freezing temperatures is a dead plant. As I write this, we are almost to Mother's Day so it's a great time to plant them here in central PA.

There is so much that has been written on growing tomatoes but this should be enough to give you a good running start. So go get some tomato plants and get growing!