Best Time To Plant Your Tomatoes
If you are interested so much in vegetable gardening, then growing tomatoes at home is a must.
Tomatoes are versatile fruits and require fairly intensive labour.
When it is time to harvest them, they have very high rewards.
Hundreds of tomato varieties exist today.
Whether you like making them into sauces or eating them in salads, there is a variety for everyone.
Tomatoes are one of the easiest plants to raise from seed and by sowing your own seeds you will have greater control over the timing and also the varieties available. Go on, have a go at sowing tomato seeds.
Tomatoes can be grown in green houses, in the house, in hanging baskets or outdoors.
They just require attention and slightly different care depending on the climate.
If you own a greenhouse or you have some space you can use within your house to grow tomatoes then you can do it anytime so long as the temperature is manually controlled.
The Best Time to Plant Your Tomatoes (in a place where you have all 4 seasons) outdoors is during summer.
The main reason behind this is that tomato plants require warmth not only for survival but also in the production of tomatoes.
For more information about seasons, visit your garden center and enquire for a chart that you will use to guide you.
- Ensure that there is no more frost if you do not want to get yourself into trouble.
- Before planting them, it is important to check the condition of the soil you want to use.
- Tomatoes do not require big clumpy hard soil which needs annual turning over, fertilizers, mulch, compost and raking to make it nice and lose.
- It is advisable not to plant your tomatoes where you did the previous year.
- The nutrients present in the soil are important just like the texture.
- The mulch will be of much help when it comes to water retention and keeping the soil moist when the new plants are growing.
- Fertilizer and compost will provide the much required nutrients when the plants start producing fruits.
For perfect results start by planting tomato plants indoors in pots and then move them out once the weather is above fifty degrees.
The perfect time to plant tomatoes is 2 or 3 days after it rains.
This is because the soil is still moist, easy to work with and not clumpy. If it has been dry and hot, you can soak the soil using a sprinkler the evening before you do the planting.
- It is also advisable to keep off hot direct sunlight during the transplanting of tomato plants.
- Hot direct sunlight will wilt the tomato plants.
- Planting should be done in the late afternoon on a hot sunny day to give the plants some time to adjust.
To get the best results, water your plants twice or thrice a day to make sure that the soil does not dry out.
The plants will not only wither but also develop splits in the skin if you do not provide them with adequate water.
To prevent the plants from becoming somewhat frail because of heavy fruits, stakes are needed to support the plant.
Summer temperatures produce soil that allows easy staking.
Tomato plants grown indoors but will require plenty of light and water.
Image credit: jayneandd
