Content
Growing tomatoes in an ordinary summer cottage is not so easy - this crop is too capricious and very heat-loving. The best results in cultivating tomatoes are achieved by gardeners who have greenhouses and greenhouses at their disposal - here tomatoes feel much more comfortable than in open ground. But greenhouse tomato cultivation has a lot of features and rules, non-compliance with which leads to the death of plants and a decrease in yield.
This article will tell you how to plant tomatoes and how to ensure proper care of tomatoes after planting them in a greenhouse.
Planting tomatoes in a greenhouse
There are no fundamental differences in how to plant tomatoes in a greenhouse or in open ground. The main thing at the initial stage is to choose or grow healthy and strong seedlings that can grow into a full-fledged bush and produce a good harvest.
Signs of good tomato seedlings
High-quality tomato seedlings must meet a number of criteria:
- Have sufficient height - plants normally reach 25-30 cm; strong bushes about 20 cm high are suitable for planting in a greenhouse.
- Be distinguished by bright green leaves, elastic thick stems, not be lethargic and do not look sickly.
- By the time the tomato is planted in the greenhouse, the seedlings should have at least 7-8 fully formed leaves.
- It’s good if the first ovary has already formed on the plants, but the buds should not open yet.
- The roots of the tomato should not be damaged or show signs of rotting. Those seedlings whose roots are firmly entangled in a lump of substrate will take root well in a greenhouse.
Many farmers buy ready-made tomato seedlings, but you can grow them yourself - it’s not too difficult, but this way you can be sure of the quality of the planting material and the tomato variety.
How to plant tomatoes in a greenhouse
Due to the peculiarities of the Russian climate in this region, only one way of growing tomatoes is possible - through seedlings. In a greenhouse, plants are more protected from weather surprises and other external factors, and in Siberia, for example, only in protected soil can a really good harvest of heat-loving crops be grown.
Greenhouses for tomatoes can be anything: film, polycarbonate or glass. From material greenhouse Only the timing of transplanting seedlings will depend. For example, a polycarbonate or glass greenhouse will warm up faster than a film greenhouse, so seedlings can be planted here earlier.
But the earliest time for planting tomatoes is in heated greenhouses - here vegetables can be grown all year round, providing them with the necessary temperature, humidity and lighting.
The stages of planting tomato seedlings in a greenhouse are as follows:
- First you need to prepare the ground for tomatoes. This should be done in the fall or after harvesting the last crop (if the greenhouse is heated). In any case, the earth must rest for at least 30 days. If previous plantings were sick, the top layer of soil will have to be removed and replaced with a new one. When the soil in the greenhouse is already too depleted, it is completely replaced. The soil should be dug up, adding organic matter to it, and immediately before planting the tomato, when the holes for seedlings are being prepared, you also need to add mineral fertilizers - tomatoes love nutritious soil. The same soil is perfect for cucumbers; their plantings are often combined with tomatoes in the same greenhouse. It’s good if green manure was planted in a greenhouse before growing vegetables; these crops help saturate the soil with the necessary components and loosen it.
- Immediately before planting tomatoes, you need to make beds, the depth of the grooves should be about 10-15 cm, and distance between them depends on the tomato variety. The soil in the beds must be watered with a disinfectant composition, such as copper sulfate or potassium permanganate.
- Tomato seedlings must be transferred to the greenhouse along with a lump of earth, so they do this carefully, trying not to damage the roots or shake the entire substrate.
- Before planting a tomato, water at room temperature is poured into each hole; they try to plant the seedlings until the water is completely absorbed into the soil - this will allow the roots to fully expand, so there will be no voids between the roots of the tomatoes.
- Tomatoes need to be deepened into the ground up to the cotyledon leaves. But, if the seedlings are too elongated, they can be deepened further; it is best to tilt the plants at an angle of 45 degrees.
Planting tomato seedlings in the greenhouse is finished; now all that remains is to properly care for the plants in order to get a rich harvest.
The planting pattern for different varieties of tomatoes may differ due to their different heights and branching, as follows:
- It is recommended to grow indeterminate varieties of tomatoes, which can reach a height of two meters, in one stem, and leave the distance between tomato bushes within 70-80 cm. There should be about 60-70 cm of soil free between the rows.
- Determinate varieties of tomatoes, as a rule, have compact bushes and do not grow more than 70 cm in the air. For normal development, such tomatoes need 30-40 cm between bushes and 40-50 cm between rows.
How to care for tomatoes after planting in a greenhouse
Tomatoes are significantly different from cucumbers and other garden crops - these vegetables need to be carefully cared for; without timely and proper care, tomatoes simply die.
This capriciousness of tomatoes is primarily due to the heat-loving nature of the crop, because initially tomatoes grew only in countries with warm climates. Russian temperatures are not very suitable for delicate tomatoes - these vegetables love constant heat.Whereas in our country, fluctuations in night and day temperatures can be very significant (in Siberia, for example, daytime heat of 45 degrees is often replaced by night cooling down to 10-11 degrees).
Due to such changes, the tomato may experience serious vegetation disorders, which will lead to the shedding of leaves, the appearance of fungus or other infections, and other problems.
Therefore, the goal of caring for tomatoes in a greenhouse is to maintain temperature and humidity conditions, fertilize and protect against dangerous diseases or pests.
Watering
Planted tomato seedlings should be watered no earlier than 10 days after transplanting. The signal for the gardener will be when the tomatoes are pulled out - if the plants have started to grow, they have already acclimatized enough and can be watered.
Earlier watering will lead to rotting of the root system, which is not yet able to absorb nutrients, including water. If the weather outside is very hot and sunny, and the walls of the greenhouse are transparent, you can shade the drooping seedlings, but you should not water them ahead of time.
To water tomatoes, use settled water, the temperature of which should correspond to the temperature of the ground in the greenhouse - this way the seedlings will not experience stress every time you water them.
Water should not get on the stems and leaves of tomatoes, since in the greenhouse for these plants the risk of infection with rot or late blight is already too high, and high humidity further increases the likelihood of problems. It is ideal to water the tomatoes using a watering can with a long spout or use a drip irrigation system for irrigation.
The irrigation scheme largely depends on the temperature and humidity conditions in the greenhouse. On average, tomatoes need to be watered every 5-7 days.
At first, for each square meter of the greenhouse there should be about 5 liters of water, during the flowering period the amount of water gradually increases to 12 liters, and in extreme heat and at the stage of fruit ripening, tomatoes already need at least 15 liters per square meter of land.
It is best to water tomatoes in the early morning or evening, when the heat subsides. If the rays of the sun fall through a drop of water on the leaves or fruits of a tomato, the plant will certainly burn.
Ventilation
High humidity is detrimental to tomatoes, so an important component of quality care for them is ventilation of the greenhouse. Drops usually accumulate on the walls of the greenhouse - condensation, which appears due to the temperature difference inside and outside the greenhouse.
You definitely need to get rid of condensation, because it increases the humidity level, which is why the tomatoes begin to get sick and die.
Ventilation of the greenhouse is also necessary to regulate the temperature. The greenhouse should not be hotter than 30 degrees; as the temperature rises, the tomatoes begin to shed flowers and ovaries, which leads to their death. At night, the temperature in the greenhouse should not be lower than 16 degrees, and during the day the optimal value is 22-25 degrees.
In spring, the greenhouse is ventilated during the day, when it is warm enough outside. The windows need to be opened slightly, do this several times a day for a short period of time. In summer, the greenhouse can be open at least the whole day, the main thing is to avoid the heat.
Normal humidity levels in a greenhouse with tomatoes are considered to be 68-70% - in such conditions we can talk about sufficient watering and soil moisture.
With such an assistant, even those summer residents who visit their plots only on weekends will be able to grow tomatoes in a greenhouse.
Pollination
Modern tomato varieties for greenhouses almost always belong to the group of self-pollinating plants. But even such crops need wind, a minimum number of insects or human help.
There are several ways to help tomatoes in this case:
- Some people bring hives with bees into a greenhouse with tomatoes, but this method is only suitable for those who have these bees. This option is also not suitable for small greenhouses - the hive simply will not fit there.
- You can attract insects to tomatoes with fragrant and bright flowers. Such plants are planted mixed with cucumbers and tomatoes, or pots with flowering crops are brought in only at the stage of flowering vegetables.
- Drafts also help transfer pollen from one plant to another. Tomatoes are not very afraid of drafts, so it is quite possible to open the windows on opposite walls of the greenhouse.
- Humans can also transfer pollen from tomatoes. To do this you will need a brush with natural bristles. With this tool, you first touch the stamens of one plant, then transfer the pollen to other tomatoes.
In order for the pollination process to be possible, the pollen on tomato flowers must be dry and crumbly, and for this it is necessary to maintain the correct temperature and humidity conditions in the greenhouse.
Bush formation
The formation of a cucumber, tomato or any other bush is necessary primarily in order to increase the yield of a vegetable crop. After all, if you do not thin out the shoots, the plant will grow and all its strength will be spent on feeding the green mass and roots, while there will be nothing left for the fruits.
Tomato shoots begin to be removed a week after planting the seedlings in the greenhouse. Moreover, tall varieties, in addition to pinching, require tying - pegs for this are driven in at the stage of planting tomatoes in the ground.
Tall varieties of tomatoes are usually grown in greenhouses in a single stem. To do this, you need to leave only the very first, lower shoot, and remove all the others until their length reaches 7 cm. When 7-8 ovaries are formed on the bush, you need to pinch its top - now all the forces of the plant will go to ripening the fruits.
Low-growing tomatoes can be grown with two or three stems. The lower branches are left, all subsequent shoots are simply removed. They leave the most powerful and strong stepsons.
Nutrition
It is necessary to feed tomatoes regularly and abundantly - this crop loves fertilizers. But an excess of feeding also has a bad effect on the final result - the quality and quantity of the harvest. Therefore, you need to observe the measure and adhere to a certain schedule:
- The first time tomatoes are fed 2-3 weeks after transferring the seedlings to the greenhouse. To do this, you can use a complex fertilizer in combination with a mineral additive.Subsequent feeding is best done only with organic fertilizers, since tomato fruits accumulate nitrates from mineral complexes well. So, half a kilogram of mullein and a tablespoon of nitrophoska are diluted in a bucket of water. Tomato bushes are watered with this mixture.
- After another 10-14 days, the tomatoes can be fertilized with a solution of bird droppings. In a bucket (10 liters) you need to dissolve the fertilizer based on a ratio of 1:15.
- The third time tomatoes need to be fed at the stage of fruit ripening. To do this, use a solution of mullein - proportion 1:10.
All fertilizers can be applied only under watered tomatoes, otherwise there is a high probability of burning the plants.
Disease Control
For tomatoes, pests are not as dangerous as various viruses and fungal infections. The gardener’s task is to ensure the prevention of tomatoes and to recognize the problem at an early stage and begin to fight it.
Evidence that tomatoes are sick will be their appearance:
- If the plant loses leaves and flowers, it either lacks moisture or the tomato is too hot.
- Curling tomato leaves may indicate a lack of moisture. However, this is not the only reason; a more dangerous factor is infection. In this case (if watering did not help and the leaves on the bushes remained curled), the tomato bush should be urgently pulled out and burned so that the infection does not spread to healthy plants.
- If a summer resident sees that tomatoes have stopped growing, are developing poorly, and do not form ovaries, this is a consequence of improper feeding.Depending on the agricultural technology used, either the tomatoes do not have enough microelements for proper development, or there is an excess of nitrogen fertilizers. The situation will be corrected by adjusting the feeding schedule.
- When the fruits do not ripen, there may be too many of them on one bush, and the plant simply does not have enough strength. This is not so scary - unripe tomatoes are picked and placed in a well-lit place, where the fruits will fully ripen in a few days.
- Spots on plants and fruits may indicate that the tomato is infected with late blight or another fungal disease. It will no longer be possible to stop such a disease, but you can try to slow down its development. To do this, tomato bushes are irrigated with a solution of Fitosporin, diluting it in water in a ratio of 1:10. Treatment must be carried out every 10 days. Additionally, the gardener must monitor the temperature and humidity in the greenhouse and provide the tomatoes with normal ventilation.
- Top rot manifests itself in blackening of the lower part of the fruit and damage to the leaves. Dealing with the problem is simple - you need to tear off the lower leaves in contact with the ground, and pollinate the entire bush with wood ash.
Every farmer knows that it is quite difficult to deal with tomato problems; it is much easier to prevent them. One of the preventive measures can be called, for example, mulching the soil between tomatoes in a greenhouse to prevent contact of leaves with the soil, and also to make watering less frequent.
Results
Growing tomatoes differs in many ways from cultivating cucumbers, for example. This is a more heat-loving and complex crop, for which proper care is very important.Only by ensuring proper watering, fertilizing, humidity and temperature conditions can you count on getting a good tomato harvest.
