What a delight to taste a good, freshly picked garden tomato!
No wonder the tomato is the most eaten vegetable in the world.
In addition, the tomato is very easy to grow in your garden, but also in pots on the balcony or terrace.
To help you eat delicious tomatoes all year round, here are the 10 market gardening tips for growing beautiful tomatoes . Watch:
Click here to easily print this guide in PDF.
1. Plant your tomato plants in a place with direct exposure to the sun (at least 10 hours a day).
2. To promote air circulation, leave enough space between each plant (about 50 cm for normal-sized plants).
3. Water the base of your tomato plants once a week, and a little more often during periods of high heat. The main thing is to avoid wetting the foliage, as this favors the appearance of diseases.
4. Pinch then remove the side shoots (the "greedy ones") that form in the axils of the leaves, as in the photo below:
5. When your tomato plants exceed one meter in height, remove the leaves from the first 30 cm from the base of the plant.
6. Provide strong cages or stakes between which you can stretch wires and tie the stems every 20 cm.
7. When your tomatoes start to ripen, spread some compost around the plant and mix it well into the soil.
8. For varieties with indeterminate growth*, pinch the top of the main stems at the beginning of summer, in order to divert the maximum of sap towards the fruits.
9. Regularly examine your tomato plants to locate pests such as the tomato hornworm (a large green caterpillar with white stripes). Remove and destroy these caterpillars as soon as you see them.
10. Harvest your tomatoes when they mature but are still firm. Pick them by holding the fruit in the palm of your hand and twisting your hand slightly.
*There are 2 types of growth for tomato plants:
- Tomato stems with determinate growth: all the fruits ripen almost at the same time, and the plants are more compact and take up less space.
- Indeterminate growth tomato stalks: produce tomatoes indefinitely until the climatic conditions cease to be favorable and the plant and produce many stems.
- The "Rose de Berne" tomato:tomato with very thin skin, dense flesh, juicy, sweet and very fragrant. Excellent in salads.
- The Cœur de Bœuf tomato:produces fruits weighing 200 to 300 g (or even 500 g!) with full and very tasty flesh. Its high sugar content makes it a tasty tomato for stuffing, juice or in cold soups.
- The "Green Zebra" tomato:with emerald green flesh, juicy, dense, sweet and slightly acidic, excellent and tasty in salads, canned or candied.
- The "Black Crimean" tomato:fruits from 120 to 150 g, but can also reach 500 g! Ribbed and slightly flattened tomato with dense, soft and sweet flesh, dark purple, containing few seeds.
- The horned Andean tomato:variety with elongated fruits with few seeds, this tomato has firm, juicy flesh, without acidity, very digestible and fragrant. To be used in salads or in sauces.
- To keep all the flavors of your tomatoes, keep them at room temperature. The tutorial is here.
- Storing in the refrigerator may reduce the taste of your tomatoes, but it will keep them for 10 days.
- To ward off parasites, it is good to associate the tomato with plants of basil, parsley as well as marigolds. Click here to discover the practical guide to combining vegetables from the vegetable garden.
- Be aware that if you don't remove the suckers, the tomato stalks will just make tomatoes a little smaller but in larger quantities.
- recipe for chicken with mozzarella in tomato sauce
- delicious and economical recipe for stuffed tomatoes
- easy and inexpensive recipe for tomato and zucchini lasagna
- what to do with overripe or rotten tomatoes? My delicious tomato coulis recipe.
Have you tried these gardening tips to grow beautiful tomatoes? Let us know in the comments if it worked. We can't wait to read you!
