EASY Watering Trick for Amazing Tomato Harvests

now if you have a garden you must grow tomatoes and there's always lots of little ways that you can improve your tomato crop but today i think is actually one of the most important because it's a watering technique that's going to set your tomatoes up for true abundance throughout summer and into autumn [Music] the best thing about this tip is that it can be applied to almost any plant in the garden because the focus is actually on the root system the root system is what sets up a plant for success for example these purple sprouting broccoli are so healthy and productive because they've got the root system there to support them and rather than focusing on growing all these fresh green leaves we need to actually focus on what's happening under the ground what i want my plants to have is as deep of a root system as possible the reason why is that it allows them to have more access to nutrients more access to water as well during dry weather and it also creates a stronger plant it's almost like a skyscraper a taller skyscraper needs that deeper foundation to help it withstand weather so the trick to have a really healthy tomato plant and get loads of tomatoes is actually when you transplant them you want to encourage the roots to go searching downwards as soon as possible the dead simple way to encourage the roots to go downwards searching for moisture is actually by not watering your tomatoes after transplanting them for at least a week up to 10 days because that is going to encourage them once the water near the surface starts to evaporate to actually go downwards and create that strong root system from the get-go an important principle to know whenever it comes to growing food and watering is that if you do a shallow water or if you water very regularly what that does is it actually creates lazy plants because all the water is on the surface there's no need for the roots to go down however if you extend the periods between watering water deeply but once or twice a week that is the single best thing that you can do to create a healthy plant the other thing that we can't forget to mention is taste and if the roots have a deeper healthier root system they have a better chance of mining or taking the trace elements and minerals that they need and a plant that has that balanced nutrition is going to reward you with better taste i'm now going to walk through the step by step of planting a tomato plant and then following this principle and process to encourage the roots to go down nice and deep so the first thing that i do is i'm creating actually quite a deep hole here it's definitely quite a bit deeper than the tomato because what i'm actually going to do is plant the tomato down to just above the first set of kind of proper leaf and i'm going to remove these lower leaves because that's another way of creating deeper roots you can actually plant tomatoes really really deep and then you're going to have the bottom root and then the top roots so once i've created the hole which is deeper than the plant i test it by placing it in the hole i'm going to remove slightly more and then get a good healthy handful of compost and then another one a little bit extra make a bit of space and then give it a proper soaking at least seven to ten seconds of water so i'm just letting that drain down and the reason why i've done this is that it's actually going to charge up the base of the raised bed with lots and lots of moisture and because it's so far down it's not going to evaporate it's actually going to stay in there for a long time and that's going to encourage the tomato roots down so then what i'm going to do is turn it upside down gentle tap it's actually fairly dry so it fell out perfectly make sure i'm happy with the hole and place it down to the desired depth and then what you can do is you can put a little bit of compost around the sides and then refill slightly give it just a touch of water maybe three seconds of quite a heavy load one two three let that soak in and as it's soaking in place the rest of the soil around it and start firming it down nicely because you also want to make sure that the plant is firmed in because if you think about it even with support when it's laden with tomatoes it's going to be quite a heavy thing so doing that initial firming process is going to help set it set those foundations and then those deep roots are going to do the rest i'm a big advocate of mulching tomatoes however don't do this in the first seven to ten days because it's just gonna keep the whole soil nice and moist and it's gonna discourage the roots from actually going down and searching for that water however afterwards you can either mulch with something like wall packaging or one of my favorites is grass clippings to help maintain that constant moisture the other thing that this will help prevent when the tomatoes actually ripening is the fruits from splitting usually that happens after a lot of dry and then a sudden influx of water whereas if it's that constant balance there's no worry of those fruits cracking and spoiling soon the poly crop is going to be full of tomato plants now if it's your first time growing tomatoes or you're looking for some particular tips i made this video last year showing you eight tips to get a better tomato harvest and make sure you give it a watch before the season properly starts

Channel: Huw Richards

Views: 1,116,307

Keywords: how to grow tomatoes, growing tomatoes, gardening

Id: BX6NcwH8eH4

Length: 6min 42sec (402 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 20 2022