Growing tomatoes

Tomatoes are grown by gardeners all over the world. Botanically, their tasty fruits are considered berries, and chefs and farmers have long called them vegetables. The culture belongs to the genus of nightshade plants. Its closest relatives in the garden are potatoes, eggplants and peppers. Depending on the variety, a tomato bush can have a height from 30 cm to 3 m. The fruits of the crop are also distinguished by a variety of colors and weights. Some large-fruited varieties can bear fruit weighing up to 1 kg. The mature product contains a lot of useful substances, vitamins, minerals, acids and sugars. It is generally accepted that tomatoes have a healing effect: they reduce cholesterol levels and increase human immunity. Farmers in Russia practice growing tomatoes in the protected conditions of a greenhouse and in open areas of the ground. Below in the article you can learn some secrets of growing tomatoes and detailed information on how to get high yields of tasty and healthy vegetables on your plot.

Choosing a variety: what to look for

Experienced farmers probably have several favorite, proven tomato varieties that they grow in their gardens every year. For beginning farmers, choosing a variety can cause some difficulties, since each of them has specific characteristics according to a number of criteria:

1. Tallness. This is the first criterion that you need to pay attention to when buying seeds for growing tomatoes. There are indeterminate, determinate and standard varieties. Features of indeterminate tomatoes consists of unlimited shoot growth. Such bushes are called tall and are often grown in greenhouses, which allows harvesting until late autumn. When growing indeterminate tomatoes, special attention should be paid to feeding and bush formation. Medium-sized tomatoes are called determinate., which independently complete their growth after the appearance of a certain number of fruit clusters. Their yield is slightly lower than that of indeterminate tomatoes, but cultivation requires less attention and care. Standard low-growing varieties do not require the formation of bushes and are considered tomatoes for lazy gardeners.
2. Fruit ripening period. The first tomatoes at the beginning of summer are the most desirable. They can be obtained by growing early ripening varieties that bear fruit within 85 days after seed germination. Mid-early types of tomatoes ripen in 100 days, but you will have to wait more than 120 days for ripe fruits of late varieties.
3. Productivity. This characteristic is fundamental for many farmers. The highest yielding tomatoes are indeterminate tomatoes, which allow you to get up to 50 kg/m².
4. Resistance to low temperatures and diseases. This criterion is very important when growing tomatoes in the northern regions.

In addition to the main characteristics, the taste of vegetables, their average weight, shape, color, and tomato hybridity are of particular importance. It is worth noting that you can prepare your own seeds for next year only from varietal tomatoes. The quality of hybrids is lost when grains are harvested independently.

Preparing seeds for sowing

Many farmers are confident that the secrets of growing tomatoes lie in the proper preparation of seeds for sowing. Using certain procedures, even before sowing the grains in the ground, you can influence the quality and viability of adult tomatoes. Thus, proper preparation of seeds for sowing consists of several important steps:

1. Warming up. This procedure makes tomatoes more resistant to summer drought. To carry it out, the seeds are placed in a fabric bag and suspended from a hot radiator for a month.
2. Hardening. Hardening tomato seeds means making future tomatoes adapted to unfavorable weather conditions and short-term cold snaps. The procedure is important when growing tomatoes in unprotected soil. To harden, the seeds are placed on a damp cloth and placed in the refrigerator for 12 hours. After this, the seeds are warmed in room conditions for 6-8 hours. The cycle is repeated for 5-7 days.
3. Etching. On the surface of the seeds there may be harmful microflora in the form of bacteria and fungi, as well as pest larvae. They can be removed by treating the seeds with a 1% manganese solution. Soak the grains for 30-40 minutes, then rinse with clean running water.
4. Selection. Sowing a large number of tomato seeds requires a lot of time, effort and free space. You can select only high-quality, viable seeds for sowing using a saline solution. In a half-liter jar of water, you need to dissolve a tablespoon of salt and place tomato seeds in the solution, stirring the liquid again. After 10 minutes, the filled tomato seeds will sink to the bottom of the container, and the empty ones will remain floating on the surface of the liquid. They need to be removed. Seeds selected for sowing should be washed with clean water.
5. Soaking in nutrient solution. There are a lot of different drugs that activate tomato growth and accelerate seed germination and increase the plant’s immunity. One of these drugs is Epin. Add 2 drops of this substance to 100 ml of water and soak the tomato seeds for 2 hours.
6. Germination. It is recommended to sow seedlings already germinated seeds tomato You can germinate them in damp fabric at a temperature of +22-+25⁰C. When soaking, water can be replaced with aloe juice, which will have a disinfecting effect.

Treated, germinated seeds guarantee high germination of tomatoes. All of the above procedures strengthen the immunity of tomatoes, make them more viable and strong, and increase crop yield.

Growing seedlings correctly

Strong seedlings are the key to a good tomato harvest. It can be grown only with proper care, timely watering and feeding of young plants.

Time to sow

It is recommended to plant grown tomato seedlings at the age of 40-45 days. Taking into account the climatic characteristics of the growing region and the early maturity of the variety, it is necessary to calculate the optimal date for sowing seeds for seedlings.

In greenhouse conditions, tomato seedlings can be planted in mid-May, which means you need to sow tomato seeds at the end of March. Tomato seeds with a long period of fruit ripening are sown for seedlings very early, starting in February. Such tomatoes are planted in the soil at the age of 60-70 days.

Optimal conditions for seedlings

Tomato seedlings are grown in small containers with holes in the bottom to drain excess water. The height of the container must be at least 10 cm. It must be filled with nutritious soil. The substrate can be purchased at the store or prepared with your own hands by adding peat and sand to the soil from the garden. You can improve the nutritional value of soil for tomatoes using wood ash and mineral fertilizers. The rate of their application is: per bucket of substrate 500 ml of ash and 2 tbsp. l. superphosphate.

Before sowing the seeds, the soil in the container is slightly compacted and the tomato seeds are embedded to a depth of 3-4 mm. Water the soil with tomato plantings very carefully so as not to wash the seeds onto the soil surface. After sowing, the container is covered with film and placed in a warm place. After the tomato seeds germinate, remove the cover from the container and place it in a well-lit place with a temperature of +20-+22⁰WITH.

The technology for growing tomato seedlings requires the presence of light for 12-14 hours daily.In the spring, such lighting can only be obtained by illuminating tomato seedlings with fluorescent lamps.

This will avoid intermediate picking of seedlings during the process of growing tomatoes.

Caring for young tomatoes

Tomato seedlings need to be watered 1-2 times a week. As the plants grow, watering becomes more frequent, preventing the soil from drying out. It must be remembered that excessive watering of tomatoes leads to the development of fungal diseases.

With the appearance of the first true leaf, tomato seedlings from a common container need to be planted into separate containers. To do this, you can use peat pots, plastic cups or small plastic bags. The composition of the soil for filling the containers should be similar to that in which the tomatoes were previously grown.

1.5 weeks after picking, the tomatoes need to be fed. To do this, pour 5 g of ammonium nitrate, 40 g of simple superphosphate and 12 g of potassium sulfate into a bucket of water. This fertilizer composition will allow the tomatoes to take root well and quickly grow green mass. The further feeding schedule depends on the condition of the plants. According to growing technology, it is recommended to fertilize tomato seedlings 3-4 times during the entire growing period.

Organic matter can also be used to feed tomato seedlings. This could be, for example, an infusion of mullein (1 liter per 10 liters of water). You can make such an organic fertilizer complex by adding wood ash (1 tbsp per 10 liters of solution). You can replace ash with superphosphate in the amount of 25 g.

Tomato seedlings must be fed with potassium phosphate fertilizer 10 days before planting in the soil. To do this, add 70 g of potassium sulfate and 40 g of superphosphate to a bucket of water.

Hardening

2 weeks before planting seedlings in the soil, tomatoes begin to harden. To do this, first, regularly open the windows in the room to slightly reduce the temperature. Subsequently, the tomato seedlings are taken outside, first for 15 minutes, then the time the plants remain in unprotected conditions is gradually increased until full daylight hours. This hardening will prepare the tomatoes for exposure to direct sunlight and changes in atmospheric temperature. Hardening adapts tomatoes to new growing conditions, which reduces the stress of tomatoes after planting in the ground.

As a result of proper cultivation of seedlings, by the time they are planted in the ground, tomatoes should look strong and healthy. The main stem, up to 25 cm high, should have about 6-9 true leaves. The thickness of the stem largely depends on the tallness of the variety and can be 4-6 mm. The presence of 1-2 flower clusters is also the norm for good tomato seedlings.

Planting seedlings in the ground

Tomatoes are heat-loving plants that need to be grown in sunny, windless areas of the land. Predecessors for tomatoes can be cucumbers, root vegetables, onions, and dill.

Tomato seedlings can only be planted on previously prepared soil.To do this, in the fall, the remaining vegetation is removed from the site and the soil is dug up with the addition of manure. The consumption of fresh organic fertilizer for growing tomatoes can be 4-6 kg/m². If it is not possible to prepare the soil in the fall, organic matter can be added to the soil in the spring, but it is worth considering that it must be well rotted. You can replace manure and humus with nitrogen-containing fertilizers, for example, urea (50 g/m²).

Also in the spring for growing tomatoes, additional potassium and phosphorus fertilizers are added to the soil: superphosphate (40-60 g/m²) and potassium nitrate (30 g/m²). Fertilizers can be scattered around the entire perimeter of the site, followed by raking or directly into the holes before planting tomato seedlings.

Agricultural technology for growing tomatoes requires strict adherence to the distances between bushes in the garden, since heavily dense plantings of tomatoes can contribute to the development of various fungal and viral diseases. It is recommended to plant tomato seedlings in beds 1.5 m wide in two rows. The distances between rows in one bed should be at least 60 cm. In each row, the distances between tomatoes depend on the tallness of the bushes and can be 25-60 cm. Between the ridges you need to make a furrow 50-60 cm wide so that you can move freely between ridges in the process of caring for tomatoes.

Tomato seedlings should be planted in pre-moistened holes, to a depth of the cotyledon leaves in the evening or during the day in cloudy weather. A few hours before planting, tomato seedlings also need to be watered so that when you need to remove the plants from the container, the root ball of soil does not crumble.Having placed the tomato seedlings in the hole, fill the free space with soil and squeeze it, then water the tomatoes with warm water. It is necessary to put mulch on top of the wet soil or sprinkle it with a dry substrate.

This deepening will allow the tomatoes on the lower part of the trunk to grow a rich root system, which will supply the tomatoes with nutrients.

It is worth noting that normal growth and development of tomatoes is observed in conditions with temperatures above +10⁰C, therefore, in relatively cold weather, tomatoes in open ground are covered with film after planting.

Some other rules for planting seedlings in the ground can be found in the video:

Caring for mature plants

Growing tomatoes is quite a painstaking task. With a lack of watering or fertilizing, or improper formation of bushes, tomatoes immediately begin to become depressed, and eliminating an already developing disease is not so easy. Therefore, it is very important to care for and grow tomatoes in compliance with some important rules.

Watering

Tomatoes need to be watered rarely, but abundantly. This basic rule for growing tomatoes allows you to avoid problems associated with fungal parasitism. Water tomatoes in the afternoon or evening. In hot weather, adult tomato bushes are watered every other day. Water consumption depends on the growth of the plant: for young tomatoes, 1 liter of water in each hole is enough; as they grow, and especially at the stage of formation and ripening of tomatoes, the bushes are watered at the rate of 10 liters per bush.

When watering, water is poured gradually under the root of the tomato, so that it does not spread, but penetrates deep into the ground, feeding the deep root system of the tomatoes. It is effective to water tomatoes through a plastic bottle as shown in the photo:

Loosening

Heavy, wet soil can cause tomato roots to rot during growing. The likelihood of rotting can be prevented by loosening the soil. It is necessary to loosen and weed the soil not only in the circle of tomatoes, but throughout the entire area of ​​the ridge. This will saturate the soil with oxygen and allow the tomato root system to develop harmoniously.

Weeding the beds with tomatoes is also important. Weeds often attract pests, which over time spread their colonies to tomatoes, damaging their lush greens.

Top dressing

It is necessary to feed tomatoes regularly during the growing process; however, you need to clearly know what tomatoes like and what fertilizers to use for them during which growing season. Thus, at an early stage of growing tomatoes, it is necessary to feed them with fertilizers with a high nitrogen content. This will allow them to quickly increase the required amount of greenery. As soon as the first leaves appear on the tomatoes, you need to switch to potassium-phosphorus fertilizers. They are also used until the end of the tomato growing period. Organic and mineral substances can be used as fertilizer.

The most affordable organic fertilizer for tomatoes is mullein.It is not used fresh, but is used to prepare an infusion by mixing the fertilizer with water 1:1. After infusion for 7-10 days, the fertilizer is re-diluted with water 1:10 and used for watering tomatoes. You can add wood ash (1 tbsp per bucket of solution), phosphorus or potassium fertilizer (30-40 g per bucket of ready-made solution) to the mullein infusion. A good organic fertilizer for tomatoes is also an infusion of herbs.

When growing tomatoes, experienced gardeners often use fertilizers made from yeast or bread crusts for feeding.

An example of preparing such a product can be seen in the video:

On sale you can find a lot of different mineral complex and simple fertilizers for tomatoes. The advantage of complex fertilizers is a well-formulated dosage of all necessary substances. Preparing a complex fertilizer for growing tomatoes yourself from simple minerals often causes difficulty for the gardener, since an excess of one or another substance in the fertilizer can negatively affect the growth of the tomato. The table below shows the recommended dosages of minerals and organic substances depending on the stage of growing tomatoes.

Formation of bushes

When growing tomatoes, the formation of bushes is a necessary step. It consists of several basic operations:

• Stepsoning. The procedure involves the complete or partial removal of tomato side shoots formed in the leaf axils. The stepsons are removed after their length exceeds 5 cm, leaving a small stump on the tomato trunk.
• Topping. Pinching the main trunk of a tomato is carried out about a month before the expected end of fruiting.In some cases, it is also practiced to pinch the lateral stepsons after fruit clusters and ovaries form on them. When carrying out the procedure, the upper brush of the shoot is pinched off or cut off, leaving 2-3 full, healthy leaves that will lift nutrients from the root to the top of the tomato.
• Removing leaves. In the process of growing tomatoes, it is necessary to periodically remove the lower leaves on the bush under the outermost fruit cluster. The procedure is carried out once every 2 weeks, removing 1-3 leaves.
• Removing Blooming Brushes. The first flowering clusters on tomatoes take a very long time to develop and consume a lot of energy. By removing them, you can speed up the process of formation of new fruit clusters and ripening of fruits higher up the tomato trunk.

The formation of tomatoes in a greenhouse and in open areas of the ground is carried out in the same way, and the process directly depends on the type of bush. For indeterminate tomatoes, all of the above operations are used. Determinate tomato bushes When grown, they shoot only partially, leaving several fruit-bearing side shoots. Standard tomatoes are formed only by removing some stepsons and lower leaves.

The procedure for forming tomatoes must be carried out in the morning of a sunny day so that the wounds dry out by evening. Otherwise, the tomato may become infected with bacterial, viral or fungal diseases through damaged areas of the skin. Forming tomatoes carried out simultaneously with gartering bushes.Particular attention should be paid to the formation of tomatoes when grown in a greenhouse, where there is practically no natural air circulation.

In the video you can see an example of how to properly form tomatoes with different types of bush:

Protection from pests and diseases

Protecting tomatoes from diseases and pests consists, first of all, of properly caring for tomatoes and maintaining their high immunity. There are also some universal rules that will help protect tomatoes from pests and diseases during the growing process:

1. Tomatoes should not be grown near potatoes and other nightshade plants, as this can contribute to the rapid spread of diseases and pests from one crop to another;
2. Maintaining the recommended distances between tomatoes will prevent the spread of diseases when one tomato bush is infected;
3. Timely and correct formation of tomatoes improves air circulation and prevents the development of putrefactive diseases;
4. Growing some plants in your tomato beds will help repel insect pests. For example, marigolds repel aphids, mole crickets and cutworms with their scent; coriander will eliminate aphids and the Colorado potato beetle. Helper plants should be grown between the rows and along the edges of the beds with tomatoes.
5. Products such as Epin can improve the immunity of tomatoes, making them more resistant to various ailments.
6. The development of fungal diseases on tomatoes is facilitated by weather with high humidity and sudden temperature changes.When observing such weather growing conditions, it is necessary to spray tomatoes with whey, garlic infusion or saline solution for preventive purposes. Such measures will not allow fungal spores to penetrate into the tomato trunk and damage it. Traditional methods of protecting tomatoes are characterized by high efficiency and environmental safety.

It is not at all difficult to observe the given protective measures when growing tomatoes, and they will prevent the development of diseases and will not allow pests to cause significant harm to the plants and crops.

The video clip, the link of which is located below, demonstrates the cultivation of tomatoes in full. After viewing it, you can clearly see all the stages of growing tomatoes and learn some secrets of an experienced farmer:

Conclusion

At first glance, it may seem that growing tomatoes is a very complex process that only select gardeners can master. In fact, every gardener can get a tomato harvest; to do this, you just need to stock up on certain knowledge. So, by properly preparing and planting tomato seeds in a timely manner, you can get strong, healthy seedlings. You can accelerate its growth and improve the quality of planting material with the help of fertilizing. There should be at least three of them before the tomatoes are planted in the ground. Further care for tomatoes involves, first of all, watering and fertilizing. Conscientious gardeners carry out loosening and weeding regularly for all crops, so the procedure should not cause any particular difficulties. Forming bushes for a novice farmer, of course, can be difficult, but to carry out the operation correctly, it is necessary, before removing the vegetative organs of the plant, to decide on the formation pattern of the tomato.In general, literacy and correct cultivation of crops comes with experience, because experienced farmers perform all of the above operations without thinking.

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