Okay, so now you know to heat your soil, pluck suckers, prune, bury deep, and fan your stems. What else could there be? Here are five more tips.
1. Get enough sunlight on your plants.
Tomatoes love sunlight. Ideally, you want to plant your tomatoes in a place that gets at least seven hours of direct sunlight daily. Avoid shady areas! Give your plants a good amount of sun, and theyll return the favor in the form of nice big tomatoes.
2. Space out your plants.
Another thing tomatoes love is having enough space to grow. You need to give your plants enough space for two reasons. First, you do not want them competing for resources. This will weaken the plants and the fruit will suffer. Secondly, you want to be able to walk around the plants to prune and harvest them. I find the ideal spacing to be four feet between plants. This gives the roots enough room to grow and gives you enough room to work on the plants.
3. Prepare your soil.
Make sure your soil is going to be a good environment for tomato growing. Some simple preparation can go a long way. For example, before growing plants, make sure your soil has a good amount of organic matter. If you havent been adding organic matter to your soil, put a layer of compost over it. Also, watch your soils pH. Testing your soil is easy, and balancing its pH is an easy way to prevent trouble. Tomatoes tend to do best in soil where the pH is between 6.0 and 6.5.
4. Keep the soil moist.
Tomatoes do best in damp soil and will shrivel if they dry out. But this does not mean that you should flood your tomatoes. It is best to water slowly and gently. The rule of them is about an inch of rain per week. If you get less than that, you'd better water your tomatoes.
One fantastic habit for keeping soil moist is mulching. Mulching helps keep water in the soil and will help nourish you plants. It will also insulate the soil, prevent weed growth, and return nutrients to your soil.
Follow these tips and youll have picture-perfect tomatoes. They'll taste great, too!