5 Tomato Growing Tips For JUNE

this video is supported by bootstrap farmer hey there welcome to geeky Greenhouse in this video I want to talk about five tomato growing tips for the month of June now I know the month of June can look very different based on where it is you're located but generally speaking these five tips that I'll cover in this video should help your tomato plants grow stronger and ultimately lead to a better overall usable yield let's jump right into it with the first tip and that is to stay on top of pruning your tomato plants now the topic of pruning tomatoes is very complicated and we have a dedicated video all about how to prune your Tomatoes but I'll give a general overview here and there are basically three types of pruning that we recommend the first type is bottom pruning and I recommend bottom pruning your Tomatoes no matter what type of plant it is and it's basically just taking the bottom 8 to 12 in of foliage and branching off of the plant now of course before doing this you want to make sure your plants are tall enough and they have plenty of foliage left after the bottom pruning this plant up here I haven't yet bottom prune just because it's not quite big enough not quite established enough to where I feel comfortable taking off those bottom leaves and what this process does is basically opens up the bottom of the plant providing better air flow and it will help prevent soil splashing up on the bottom leaves which can introduce disease the second type of pruning is removing suckers and this is where it starts to get a little bit complicated I only recommend removing suckers from indeterminate larger tomato types so Globe Tomatoes slicing tomatoes beef steak tomatoes anything that's bigger than a cherry it's recommended that you remove most or all of the suckers in the case of cherry tomatoes or determinate Tomatoes you can leave all of your suckers in place to grow which will help produce a much bushier plant and better overall yields but this here is an indeterminate large tomato so we're removing the suckers regularly they produce like crazy on plants like this and you really need to stay on top of it in this case we have two main stems so it's basically a dual stemmed tomato plant all the rest of the suckers are removed so that the plant can focus energy on those two stems the end result of this is bigger fruits and more evenly sized fruits and that's what we want nice consistently Siz tomatoes and the last type of tomato pruning is thinning out the overall plant and making sure that it can breathe so to speak most Tomatoes get very bushy they'll send off Leaf choots from all over the place and it can get very crowded and stuffy so you want to make sure that you can sort of see through the plant from all angles which means that the air flow can get through the plant as well thereby reducing disease again there's a link to our video All About pruning tomatoes in the description below in terms of frequency I come out and prune tomatoes probably once a week in the month of June the plants are growing very very vigorously at this point in time so it's really important to say on top of it those suckers can grow faster than you would believe so anytime you're in the garden it's a good idea to check your plants and see if you can do any pruning the next thing you can do for your tomatoes in June is mulch them if you haven't already provided some mulch around the base of your plants June is a great time to do this not only does it suppress weeds around your plant preventing competition for water and nutrients but it will also prevent that soil splashing that I talked about and it will help retain moisture in the soil which will prevent problems your Tomatoes later on the most notable problem that that can prevent is cracked Tomatoes you've probably seen this happen on your plants later in the season right as your tomatoes are starting to ripen up they crack open and it's very unsightly and some people don't like to eat those Tomatoes even though usually they're fine but why have cracked Tomatoes when you can prevent it altogether the goal of a mulch is to keep that moisture in the soil even throughout the season all the way through to harvest and avoid periods of drought and overwatering and having a nice 2 to 3 in layer of mulch on the soil can reduce the need to water especially if you're growing in the ground uneven soil moisture is also the main cause of blossom end rot another very common problem with tomatoes if you've ever had this issue some mulch might help solve the problem when it comes to the best types of mulch for tomatoes we like using straw Leaf malts or even sometimes our own grass clippings after drying but you can also use pine needles or wood chips the next thing you can do for your tomatoes in June is to consider providing them with some shade now here in New England we're not quite there yet it's not that hot in the month of June for us but in other parts of the country and in the world it gets very hot in June and your Tomatoes don't necessarily like that heat if the temperatures in your area are climbing into the '90s or higher during the day it can really help your plants to shade them starting around midday and into the early afternoon when the sun is at its most intense temperatures above 90° fenhe can cause a lot of problems with your Tomatoes it can cause leaves to curl in but more importantly it can cause Sun scald on the tomatoes themselves and other issues like yellow shoulder disorder by providing shade your plants can actually produce larger leaves and can produce a much more usable crop so your overall yield of high quality Tomatoes goes up so how can you provide shade to tomato plants well if you're growing in containers it's pretty easy you can just move them to a shaded spot in the midday and early afternoon maybe under a tree or next to a building on the east side where the sun isn't hitting or if you're growing in a raised bed like like this you can use shade cloth now that brings me to the sponsor of this video bootstrap Farmer they have many different options of shade cloth which are perfect for shading tomatoes and many other crops as well I'd highly recommend using white shade cloth for your tomatoes because it doesn't absorb as much of the heat from the Sun so it's going to reduce the temperature around your plants but more importantly it's going to block some of the UV radiation preventing that sunscald and yellow shoulder disorder this is what white shade cloth looks like it's essentially a mesh this is a 50% shade cloth which blocks about half of the light and a lot of the UV radiation but it also allows for air flow throughout your garden which is really important for tomatoes so you can suspend the shade cloth above your tomatoes in a number of different ways you can wrap it around your tomato cages or simply drape it over the plants using some staks if you do happen to have hoops over your raised beds bootstrap farmer also makes some Great Clips to attach the shade cloth over your low tunnels which works for a wide range of other Fabrics as well if you're interested in using some shade cloth or many other great gardening products check out the links in the description to bootstrap farmer and thanks to them for sponsoring this video another really important thing to do in June for your Tomatoes is fertilize your plants especially plants grown in containers where the nutrient Supply is more limited I really like using liquid nutrients for container grown tomatoes like this fish fertilizer it's a 511 so plenty of nitrogen a little bit of phosphorus and potassium as well you can also supplement with additional potassium and calcium which tomatoes will definitely appreciate for that fruit produ uction so things like bone meal or pot as are great as well the important thing is to provide the nutrients your tomatoes need before they're showing symptoms of a deficiency it's really important to avoid that stress so June is a great time after your plants have established and they're growing vigorously give them a little bit of a boost maybe a month or so after transplanting out in the month of June that's a great time to start a fertilizer regimen especially again for container plants but don't ignore your inground plants either hopefully you did amend the inground soil before planting Tomatoes but the month of June is a great time to side dress your tomatoes for inground beds this espoma Garden tone is a great option it has everything your plants could need if you do have mulch in the garden move it aside before you fertilize don't put it on top of the mulch get it underneath right on the surface of the soil and scratch it into the first inch or so of soil then make sure to water the plant thoroughly after fertilizing to initiate the breakdown of that fertilizer we usually do a couple of side dressings throughout the season in addition to the original amendments that we do before trans planting so that's three separate occasions where we're fertilizing our inground tomatoes for potted plants it's much more frequently it's usually every 1 to 3 weeks or so depending on the brand that you're using fish fertilizer is every 3 weeks but other non-organic fertilizers might require more frequent feeding because those nutrients can be washed out more easily from the soil and another thing you can do for your tomatoes in the month of June is plant some companion plants nearby your Tomatoes if you haven't already we highly recommend planting flowers we have some alysum planted right along the base of this tomato plant I just harvested before this video a huge head of lettuce that was sitting right here and that was actually using the shade of the Tomato so that that wouldn't get as hot and of course basil is one of the most common tomato companion plants this is a different variety of Basil it's sort of variegated with purple and green other great tomato companion plants include garlic onions Peppers many other herbs including thyme chives and especially flowering plants like zenas Cosmos and of course we love alysum as a companion the goal of any companion plant is to attract beneficial insects or in one way or another form a symbiotic relationship between the two plants so in the case of a head of lettuce next to our tomato we were using the shade from the tomato plant to benefit the lettuce but in the case of alysum these plants are amazing at attracting hoverflies we always see them covered in hoverflies which feed on things like aphids which can impact your tomatoes so it's never too late the month of June is definitely early enough to go out to the nursery or even plant from seed things like alysum and other flowering plants to benefit your Tomatoes let us know how your tomatoes are looking ours are looking beautiful for this time of year here in New England we've already got some baby tomatoes on this plant right here and hopefully we'll be harvesting our first ripe Tomatoes by the 4th of July thanks so much for watching geeky greenhouse and I'll see you next time

Channel: Geeky Greenhouse

Views: 114,824

Keywords: gardening, plants

Id: PAfW4EIIcSQ

Length: 9min 19sec (559 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 08 2024