Tomato Farming Secrets For Healthy Yields

If you are planning to start your own vegetable garden, then tomato farming is the first and easiest step for beginners. Imagine growing ultimate tomato plants with juicy and firm tomato rendering tangy tastes with a sweet aroma.

Unlike other vegetables, growing tomatoes is much easier. The trick to grow the best tomato plants is choosing the right variety of seeds, panning it right and proper maintenance. 

Below we have mentioned some of the best ways to grow tomatoes indoors and in your garden. 

Tomato Farming Tips and Tricks 

Kick start your kitchen garden with these best tomato growing and farming tips:

Preparing Seedbeds 

The first and most important tomato growing and farming tips are to prepare the seedbeds. If the temperature exceeds 12 degrees C, the tomato seeds will start to germinate after a week. If the temperature falls below this, the plant will stop growing. Therefore you need to protect the seedbed at night from low temperatures to preserve the humidity and allow seed germination. 

Preserving the humidity is important on the land or substrate after transplant until the tomato plants grow roots. Try to pick the warmest location in your garden for your tomato plant.

Choosing The Right Type

For the best growth, it is important to choose the right variety of tomatoes. Consider these factors when buying seeds:

• Climate and duration of the growing season– if you live in northern regions with cold climates year-round, normal tomato plants will not bear fruits. Look for varieties that are specially for colder temperatures or short seasons, like cherry tomatoes or early girls. 

You can look for a heat-tolerant variety of tomato plants for southern regions and warmer climates.

• Type of Tomato- do you want to grow the tomatoes for sauce and pasta? Or want to use it as a side salad? There are various types of tomatoes, and each has a unique taste and flavor. Plum, roman, or paste tomatoes are perfect for cooking because they are rich in the flesh that is required to make sauces.

Beefsteaks are another variety of tomato. These are juicy and chunky and work best in salads and burgers. 

Cherry tomatoes have a slightly sweet taste, which makes a great snack for children. 

Seeds Collecting Tips

The best time to grow a tomato plant is during summer or at the end of winter. If you already own a germinated tomato plant, you can keep it outside during spring. Make sure to choose a bright place with direct sunlight for tomato farming. 

Tomatoes strive best in warmer climates with good sun exposure. They love the sun and should be kept on the sunniest side of the terrace. You can also grow your tomato plant vertically but make sure to prune the branches regularly.

Don’t Crowd Tomato Seedlings

This is another important tomato growing tips. If you are planning to grow tomatoes from seeds, then make sure to give plenty of room for seedlings to branch out. This means keeping a minimum number of seedlings to maintain one strong plant per pot. 

Snip the weaker and small seedlings to let the best ones grow. Crowded tomato farming can inhibit the growth, stress them, which can cause big disasters later.

When you start noticing the first few leaves on the plant, transfer them to 4-inch pots. 

Provide Lots of Light

Tomato farming requires direct and strong light. When days are shorter, grow tomato plants near a sunny window to provide them with sufficient natural light during winter. When you grow tomatoes indoors, keep them in artificial plant light for 14 to 18 hours every day.

Keep the plant under fluorescent grow lights to ensure that the plants grow stocky and strong. Keep raising the lights as the seedlings grow. When your plant is big enough, transfer them outdoors in the sunniest part of your garden.

Turn a Fan On

Providing breeze or delicate winds is essential to grow tomato plants. Moving and swaying in the wind helps the tomato plants develop strong stems. When growing the tomatoes outside, this happens naturally, but you have to provide enough air circulation if it is indoors.

Turn on a fan to create a breeze f0r 10 minutes twice each day. This small duration of breeze will make a huge difference in your plant. 

One other way to truffle the tomato plants is by rubbing them gently with your hand for a few minutes. 

Preheat the Garden Soil

Tomatoes are heat lovers, and they will not start growing until both the air and soil temperature remains warm enough. The best tomato growing tips to speed up the tomatoes id by covering the planting area with red or black plastic wrap a couple of weeks before you actually plant.

This will retain some extra heat and humidity that will later translate into tomatoes. You can get rid of the plastic when you actually plant the seedling.

Bury the Stems

One great tomato farming tip is to plant them way beneath the soil in a pot upto the top few leaves. When you grow tomato plants this way, it ensures they develop roots along the stems, making them strong.

Dig a shallow trench or a deep hole to lay the plant sideways. This trick helps the plant to grow straight, facing directly towards the sun. However, make sure that you do not bury the tomato seedling in the soil. 

Mulching Tomatoes 

If you want to skip the soil with plastic, hold odd to mulching the tomatoes until the ground warms up. However, mulching is a good step to preserving water and preventing the soilborne disease from transferring on the plants.

Doing it too soon will provide shade and cool down the soil. As we know that tomatoes love heat; let the sun warm the soil during the spring season. 

You can add a mulch later in the evening to retain moisture.

Remove the Bottom Leaves

 

When your tomato plant grows about 3 feet tall, get rid of all the leaves from the stem’s bottom. These are old leaves and usually are the first ones to develop fungus problems.

When the plant grows leaves and fruits all over the bottom, leaves get the least sunshine and airflow. The leaves close to the soil have the highest risk of getting soilborne pathogens splashing onto them.

Getting rid of these leaves will help in preventing any type of fungal disease from hitting the plants. Spray compost tea weekly to effectively ward off fungal diseases. 

Read More: Full Guide On How To Make A Raised Garden Bed At Home

Pinch and Prune for More Tomatoes

For a positive tomato farming experience, remove or pinch the suckers that develop in the lower joint of two branches. These do not bear fruit and will also take away the energy from the plant.

However, don’t go too harsh on pruning the tomato plant. Thin out a few leaves to let the sunlight reach the entire plant and ripen the tomatoes. However, the leaves do the photosynthesis and create sugars to add flavors to the tomatoes. And nobody likes sweet tomatoes, so make sure to reduce the number of leaves on the plant.

Water Regularly

If you want to grow healthy tomato plants, then do not forget the growing and farming tips. Make sure you water the tomatoes regularly until the fruits do not become ripe. Missing water schedule and irregular watering cause calcium deficiency, and your tomatoes will start splitting or cracking. 

Follow one basic rule of thumb- give at least 1-inch water to your plants every week. During summer seasons, increase the water quantity. If you see wilted plants, refresh them with water. When you see ripen tomatoes, you can ease up on the watering. 

Reducing the water will urge the plant to concentrate sugar and give a better flavor to the tomatoes. Judge according to your plant condition. Withholding water too much can make the plant wilted and drop its blossom and fruits altogether. 

Getting Your Tomato Plants to Set Tomatoes

Ripening of the tomatoes is largely dependent on the weather, but at times we can help the process. The main stem tips in early summer will push the plant to put more energy into flowering by pinching off. 

For growing tomatoes faster, the pinching trick comes in super handy at the end of summer. 

 Fertilization

Using fertilization is one of the best ways to grow tomatoes. Make sure to fertilize your plant every week to boost the fruits on the plant. Using an applicator, you can directly apply fertilizer to the leaves. 

Start using fertilizer when the seedlings start to appear. However, avoid over-fertilization as it can harm the seedling.

Try to use Potassium or Nitrogen-based fertilizer; these work best for the tomato plants. Natural remedies and organic solutions are also very effective in curing pests and treating plant diseases.

Pests Prevention Tips

This is not tomato growing tips but is a handy farming tip. To prevent pest infestation apply an infusion of potassium soap with diluted garlic or a good maceration of nette in 24 hours to refresh the plant. 

• Use Bordeaux mixture to stop mildew.
• Avoid keeping tomato plants too close as it increases the chances of disease. 
• Rats are one of the common tomato harvest destroyers. Keep your tomato plants away from rat affected areas.
• One best tomato farming method to prevent pests is to keep rotating the plants in the same area.
• Maintain healthy pot soil with sufficient minerals and nutrients.
• Use mulching to maintain the humidity and temperature of the soil. 

Final Words:

Tomatoes are one such food item that we cannot miss from our diet. It is rich in nutrition and vitamin C and also renders a delicious flavor to meals. If you want to know the best ways to grow tomatoes and do tomato farming, follow the above-listed tomato growing tips and tricks. Do not forget to leave a comment if you find this article helpful.