How to grow tomatoes

How to grow tomatoes? Before I tell you, I need to apologize to Elizabeth Barrett Browning in advance because:

How do you grow tomatoes? Let me count the ways.
Grow tomatoes to the depth and breadth and height
The vines can reach…

Now if that seems a little extreme, it really isn’t. There are dozens of ways to grow tomatoes. Available in a size and variety to tempt anybody’s palate, the popular and versatile tomato is frequently the first edible that novice gardeners grow and most often, are successful in their attempts. In other words, you don’t need a PhD to learn how to grow tomatoes!

Part of knowing how to grow tomatoes is choosing the right variety for the growing conditions you plan to give it. Grow small varieties of tomatoes in containers or hanging baskets. They’re a colorful decoration and keeping these ruby-red gems close by the kitchen is very convenient for the cook! Also, grow larger varieties of tomatoes in large containers, like half-barrels. Tomato vines can be trellised and add an attractive display to porch, deck, or patio. Nevertheless, tomatoes are most commonly grown directly in the vegetable garden.

Tomatoes are an annual plant, which especially in northern climates, are typically started indoors either from seed or from purchased transplants. Originating when natives in Mexico learned how to grow tomatoes, in keeping with their tropical heritage, tomatoes like a lot of sun and a moist (yet well-drained) growing environment. Plant tomato transplants into your garden after all danger of frost has passed. Pinch off the bottom leaves to gain more stem to plant underground. Deep planting of tomato seedlings allows them to generate a better root system, resulting in an over-all stronger tomato plant.

When you plant them in your garden, there are two basic methods of how to grow tomatoes. One method is indeterminate which means you allow the vines to ramble along the ground. Determinate growing means that you hold the tomato upright by keeping it in a tomato cage or growing it along a trellis. Of the two methods, it’s easy to see that the second method makes your tomato plants easier to manage. Tomatoes are a favorite victim of insects and plant viruses. Determinate growing also helps keep pests and other tomato diseases in check.
Harvesting tomatoes is one of the easiest parts of how to grow tomatoes. Either let them ripen on the vine or pick them when they begin to shed their green color for the colors they will attain at maturity (orange, yellow, red). Many gardeners who pick partly ripe tomatoes leave them on a windowsill to finish maturing. However, your tomatoes will ripen just as quickly, retaining more moisture and flavor, if left in the darkness of a brown paper bag.