7 Mistakes to AVOID When Growing Tomatoes |Are You Guilty of These?|

tomatoes are pretty much the most desirable crop in everyone's gardens here in shelby north carolina it would not be summer if we didn't have two slices of bread a slice of tomato in between with some duke's mayonnaise and in this video i'm going to show you seven mistakes to avoid that way you have plenty to share and you can outdo your neighbors for those of you who don't know me my name is justin lane and i've been managing my family's garden center business for the last 10 years and i make these videos to dispel the myth of a green thumb and prove that anyone can be a successful gardener with that said let's rock and roll the first mistake to avoid is choosing the wrong type of tomato basically there's two types indeterminate and determinate always remember determinate as like the plant has a determined height determinate tomatoes are naturally more bushy and compact they grow vertically about to four feet and once the vertical growth stops you get side shoots an added benefit of them is the fruits tend to ripen up a bit earlier in contrast indeterminate type tomatoes are the almost exact opposite they're going to grow 6 10 even 12 foot tall there's a little bit more work to do when it comes to staking them but the benefit is they're going to flower and continue to produce all the way until frost so which one should you grow i highly recommend determinate type tomatoes if you're short on space because they do so well in containers but if you have a little bit more options maybe you have raised beds or you're doing traditional gardening indeterminate types will be great because you're going to get a harvest all the way until frost now if you want to pause here and take some notes i'll give you my favorite determinate and indeterminate types of tomatoes my favorite determinant types include roma rutgers better bush and celebrity some of my favorite indeterminate types include cherry key purple and brandywine if you love heirlooms but if you want to try something that's a little bit more disease resistant big beef better boy goliath and even super steak are great varieties to try [Music] the next mistake to avoid is planting your tomatoes too closely together in these raised beds here uh this one's about an eight foot by four foot and i've got two rows of four they're spaced approximately two feet apart and the reason i do that is because these are indeterminate types they're going to get very dense and full at the top and i don't want neighboring plants to shade each other this is going to cause disease and a lot of other problems you don't want in your garden now it can be very tempting when growing determinate tomatoes in a pot to put two or three all together and this is a very bad idea they're going to compete with one another and again you're going to have them shading one another out later on this is not going to be a good thing because you're going to have a lack of airflow it's far better to put one tomato per pot and at least use a pot that's a 7 gallon or bigger that's what this is and the diameter is at least 12 to 14 inches don't use anything any smaller mistake number three to avoid is improper staking now again with the determinate type tomato in a pot a tomato cage will probably work because again they're only going to grow up maybe four foot tall but with an indeterminate variety you're going to need something a bit more supportive in these raised beds i mostly have indeterminate varieties and as you can see i've used six foot oak steaks to support i tie them up about every two feet but check out this tomato down here this is a super sweet 100 and i've had to take two tomato steaks and screw them together to make it 12 feet because of how tall this thing's growing now if you don't have or don't want to use six foot oak steaks you can use cages but i prefer the ones that are more cylindrical and not tapered because when they have this taper at the top they don't have a lot of support up here there's plenty of really good options for cylindrical cages i would check out the vertex ones from gardener supply you can find them on amazon too i'll link some down in the description and i've also seen people just use fence like take some chicken wire fence and wrap it around and maybe zip tie it and that's also great support [Music] mistake number four to avoid is watering your plants from the top now i've mentioned this in some of my other videos but i want to remind you that tomatoes are especially susceptible to diseases like blight and when you're watering from the top this creates wet foliage and extra humidity and this is a breeding ground for fungus spores now obviously we can't control things like rainfall but you want to be doing your part to slow the spread of any sort of disease now this has been an exceptionally dry summer so far and it's no coincidence that i have zero disease even on my heirloom tomatoes [Music] and while we're on the topic of watering mistake number five is an inconsistent watering schedule tomatoes enjoy consistently moist soil it's a bad idea to let them dry completely out because it's going to cause things like blossom end rot or the flowers to turn brown and fall off before they can ever produce any fruit often times we hear that blossom enrot is a result of a calcium deficiency but oftentimes it's rather a calcium transport issue because if your tomatoes are not regularly uptaking water they're not regularly uptaking nutrients either aka calcium and this is going to lead to blossom end rot [Music] mistake number six is over or under pruning let's talk about over pruning first this happens when you cut off too much foliage that was protecting the fruits from the harsh rays of the sun this overexposure to the sun will cause your fruits to develop sun scald you will be able to recognize sun scald pretty easily because on the actual fruit where the sun's hitting it it's going to turn like a white blister and this will cause the skin to kind of thin out and it's going to invite rot or insects in and you can eventually lose the fruit now you may be wondering if this is true then why aren't my tomatoes developing sun scald because they are pretty exposed right now one my garden is shielded from the harsh afternoon sun because of this tree line up here and two i start pruning my tomatoes very very early on when the plants are just maybe a foot tall so the fruits that are developing are being exposed to the sun the whole time and there's no shock now when it comes to under pruning if you're growing a determinate type tomato i recommend hardly pruning at all just the lower limbs that are exposed to the soil like this one the reason you want to keep these lower limbs pruned off is because in your soil resides a lot of natural bacteria and fungus and if you're watering your plants and it splashes up on these lower limbs it's going to cause diseases like blight now you also want to prune off inner limbs on your tomatoes as well especially on indeterminate varieties say this limb right here i may take that off because it's going to open up the middle of the tomato plant causing a lot of air flow and we all know by now that air flow is a good thing because it's going to help prevent disease mistake number seven is fertilizing too much or too little always start your tomato plants off right by planting them in rich compost and if later in the season you're noticing they're turning pale or yellowish it may be time to fertilize i typically fertilize my tomato plants two to three times a season something like a triple tin is fine that's ten percent nitrogen ten percent phosphorus ten percent potassium that's a good well-balanced fertilizer there are also lots of fertilizers on the market that are tomato and vegetable specific and those are going to work well as well now it just so happens that today i'm going to fertilize my tomato plants it's time if you've been watching this channel for very long you know that i love fish emulsion fertilizer it's a liquid soluble fertilizer i'm going to mix up one heaping spoonful here and put it in this gallon spilled a little bit there but i love this stuff because it's got plenty of nitrogen phosphorus potassium it's liquid soluble so it goes straight to the roots and it's very fast acting now if you want to find out more about why i love to use fish emulsion fertilizer i did a whole in-depth video on it and you can find it on the channel now let's go ahead and give these bad boys a good soaking [Applause] it's important to note that you can over fertilize your tomatoes as well you'll know you've done this when the tops of your tomatoes turn white and maybe even a little bit of a brown color and it's important to really flush out the soil with pure water and try to get some of those salts out i have definitely done this before that's why i do love using fish emulsion fertilizer because it's a lot less likely that you're going to burn your plants that's it folks your plants are going to be jumping for joy if you avoid these seven mistakes i have really enjoyed making these videos and i love watching this community grow if you want to join make sure to hit that subscribe button and notification bell that way you're going to get updated every time we release a new video until next time become a plant person [Music] you

Channel: S&K Greenhouse

Views: 520,676

Keywords: Tomato Gardening, tomato growing, tomato gardening tips, tomato growing tips, gardening, gardener, vegetable gardening, tomatoes

Id: 9y02ukBirmQ

Length: 9min 59sec (599 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 05 2022