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Tomato plants are a great addition to any garden.

If there’s one type of vegetable gardening everyone likes to participate in, it is tomato gardening.  Store-bought tomatoes don’t taste nearly as good as those you can grow in your own garden.  Tomatoes are, in their native region, a vigorous vine.  Even hybrid tomatoes will grow quickly, producing lots of fruit.  They are, despite their rapid growth, prone to problems with many pests and diseases, and will produce the best when given a little bit of extra care.  Here are some tips for growing the tastiest, healthiest tomato plants.

Feeding Tomato Plants

One way you can keep your tomato vines growing and producing for a long period of time is to feed them.  Tomatoes are heavy feeders, but they do best when fed with different ratios of nutrients at different periods of their growth cycle.  They also grow best, and have the best access to fertilizers at a pH of between 5.5 and 6.8.  That is a pretty broad pH range, but if you live in an area with extremely acidic or extremely alkaline soils, you might want to have a soil test done.

After Transplanting tomatoes will put much of their energy into growing leaves that will support the fruits as they develop.  A higher nitrogen fertilizer can be used at the beginning of the plant life cycle.

During Flowering and fruiting, tomatoes require more potassium.  At this point in the life cycle, too much nitrogen and not enough phosphorous and potassium will result in lots of big, green leaves but no flowers or fruits.

Staking and Pruning Tomatoes

There are two types of tomatoes: determinant and indeterminate.  The former grows to a certain point and then stops growing up, but can still grow out.  The latter grows as a vine and will keep growing and growing and growing.  If you’re growing tomatoes on a patio or in a pot, you’re going to want to select varieties called “bush” or “patio” tomatoes-determinant types.  One tomato characteristic to note is that the size of the fruit is not a good indication of the type of growth habit of the vines.  One of the rangiest, most sprawling tomatoes is the yellow pear tomato, which produces thumb-size, pear-shaped, yellow tomatoes.  A lot of vine for a little fruit.

If you grow any but the smallest of tomato plants, you’ll need to prune and stake at some point during the summer.  For large, sprawling varieties, a tomato cage usually works well.  It is easiest to put the cage in place before the plant gets large.  Tomato stems are brittle, and break rather than bend if you try to wrestle a cage over the plants once they are large.  You can also train them up a trellis or fence, tying up the stem ever foot or so.

Pruning tomatoes helps shape the plant, keep the size manageable, and produce fewer, larger fruits.  Pruning can also open up the center of the plant to allow for air circulation, which helps keep disease problems at bay.

Tomato Pests and Diseases

Tomatoes are, unfortunately, susceptible to a large number of pests and diseases.  Some of the most common problems, and how to treat them, are listed below

• Tomato hornworms.  These are hard to miss-they are large caterpillars the size of your thumb.  The easiest way to control these is to pick them up and drop them in a bucket of soapy water.
• Blossom end rot.  This is a cultural problem caused by a lack of calcium, and water stress.  Tomatoes in pots tend to develop this problem because they go through so many wet/dry/wet/dry cycles.  The way to beat blossom end rot is to keep your plants evenly moist.
• Mosaic virus.  The different types of mosaic viruses that affect tomatoes are carried by various insect vectors.  Your best bet for keeping viruses out of your garden is to plant resistant varieties.  The plant tags will indicate whether the variety is resistant.

Growing tomatoes is fun and rewarding-especially when you get to take your first bite.  These easy tomato gardening tips will help you grow the biggest harvest from your tomato plants.