Tomato Growing 101

Scoping out your VERY FIRST tomato plant at the store here in Lehigh Acres?

To get the best results: select any variety if it is October to March, but keep in mind that the inevitable winter frosts we get will kill tomato plants if they are left unprotected.

If it is Mid-March to September, choose a grape or cherry variety. During the summer months, the high temperatures prevent "back home" tomato varieties from setting fruit. I've tried. This is the truth. Settle for the smaller fruit of indeterminate varieties during the summer instead of being disappointed.

Now what? Ready to plant your specimine?

1. Plant late in the day so the plant can recover from shock overnight.
2. Water the tomato plant, if dry.
3. Carefully remove half of the lower leaves, by pinching with your fingers or using scissors. See photo with circles.
4. Remove the plastic sleeve by cutting the plastic with scissors and gently peeling the plastic off the peat pot. Make small cuts in the peat pot with a knife to allow the roots to expand faster.
   OR
   Remove pot by placing the base of the stem between two fingers, turn the pot upside down, and gently but firmly smack the bottom of the pot. DO NOT PULL PLANT OUT OF POT. This might damage the plant.
   
5. If the tomato is root bound (the roots are long and all wound up in the bottom of the pot) gently pull them out so they can expand into the soil after planting.
6. Select a planting location in full sun. 
7. Add some compost or aged manure (as per http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/vh028: "Compost and well-rotted, aged manure can be placed in the transplant hole, then mixed with the soil. A mixture of 2 pounds of composted yard waste plus 2 pounds of poultry manure makes a good transplant hole amendment.") plus a sprinkle a tablespoon of Epsom salts (find at Walmart in the first aid section) to the soil you will be planting the tomato in. Search compost in this blog for more information. Hopefully search Epsom salts shortly too.
8. Dig a hole deep enough so that your tomato fits up to the line shown on the photo. This allows the plant to form many roots along the buried stem. This is more necessary in the dry winter months than the summer, but I do it all the time to keep the plant as compact as possible.
9. Gently back-full in the hole with soil and apply gentle pressure so that the stem and roots are in contact with the soil and not with an air pocket.
10. Generously water.

SUCKERS. Suckers are the small shoots that grow between where a leaf meets the stem. These can be removed on tomatoes to keep the plant under control size-wise and to provide earlier and larger tomatoes. It is not recommended to use scissors because of the chance of spreading disease from cut to cut. Instead "snap" the sucker off the plant. This might be difficult when the plant is suffering from the horrific heat we can get. Instead "snap" suckers off in the morning when they are rested and recovered from the previous day.

DETERMINATE tomato is defined by Wikipedia as "Determinate, or bush, types bear a full crop all at once and top off at a specific height; they are often good choices for container growing. Determinate types are preferred by commercial growers who wish to harvest a whole field at one time, or home growers interested in canning." They have short to medium vines and their suckers are not normally removed.

INDETERMINATE tomato is defined by Wikipedia as "Indeterminate cultivars develop into vines that never top off and continue producing until killed by frost. They are preferred by home growers who wish ripe fruit throughout the season. As an intermediate form, there are plants sometimes known as "vigorous determinate" or "semi-determinate"; these top off like determinates but produce a second crop after the initial crop. Many, if not all, heirloom tomatoes are indeterminate." These will continue to grow here in Lehigh until bugs, disease, or drought kill them, or not. These grow great rambling on the ground in the winters here. However, I have found that they need to be staked, trellised, or caged once the summer rains set in to get them off the ground and prevent rot. Removing suckers is usually done if the tomatoes are staked or trellised.

Tomatoes are easy to propagate from suckers. I always have some that "get by me". When they do, I use them to make new plants. I snap them off, set them in water, that I change daily, until they begin to root. In the summer, I plant right away because we have so much rain. In the winter, I wait until there are quite a few roots. Plant directly in the ground or in a pot. Just make sure to keep them moist so they can continue to root into the soil.

I have started three varieties from seed for this summer. They are almost ready to transplant to the garden. These varieties are: Tropic VFN (http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/vh028 states: "The letters V, F, N which often follow a variety name, refer, respectively, to that variety's resistance to verticillium wilt, fusarium wilt, and nematodes."), Neptune, and Everglades Native. The first two are from Southern Exposure Seed and the last I found on eBay.

If you have any knowledge of saving tomato seed please post it in comments below or our facebook page and I will update this post.

If you have anything to add to this, or subtract to this please post it in comments below or of our facebook page and I will update this post.