If you’ve gone to your local nursery lately, you’d think, no, due to the tables full of tomato seedlings.
In Southern California tomato season does start earlier than most other areas in the country. Lucky us! You can start some early varieties and cherry tomatoes in March. However, with the rains we’ve had this season you may want to wait until late March/early April to start your tomato seedlings.
Tomatoes need a few things to successfully produce fruit:
🍅 Night time temperatures above 55 degrees
🍅 7 hours of sunlight
🍅 Organically amended soil (you can use chemicals, but why?)
When these conditions are present, you can start your tomato planting.
A few tips:
✏️ Amend your soil (if planting in the ground) with organic compost, down 12”
✏️ Plant your tomato seedlings deeply, generally you leave about 6“ of the plant above ground, the rest that is buried will produce roots with the additional benefits of taking up additional nutrients and water
✏️ Depending on the size of your plot plant tomatoes ideally 5’ - 6 ‘ apart, but for most of us we don’t have 40 acres and a mule, so at least 3’ apart is fine
✏️ Fertilize lightly; earthworm castings, kelp, fish emulsion are great for getting your tomatoes off to a good start
✏️ Do not over water, plants in the ground need water about every 5 - 6 days; some professional growers withhold water for better fruit flavor; container plants every 3 days depending on the container material
✏️ Container growers? A minimum of a 5 gallon pot for cherry to mid size tomatoes. If you want to grow large beefsteak tomatoes, you’ll need a 7 - 15 gallon pot. Black plastic growers pots are fine. Use a potting or raised bed mix for your pots
✏️ Finally don’t forget to stake your plant. Plant the seedlings with a bamboo stake, then once the plant is about 2’ tall place a cage around the plant. Don’t wait too long. Once the plants gets large and full it’s nearly impossible to place a cage around it.
Every gardener has their own favorite tomato to grow and swear it’s the best tomato ever. My experience is after a few years of growing them yourself, you’ll have your own favorites. A few of our favs:
🏆 Juliet Grape (grape/cherry tomato)
🏆 Sungold (cherry tomato)
🏆 Early Girl (mid size red tomato)
🏆 Roma (plum tomato)
🏆 Cherokee Purple (heirloom large tomato)
🏆 Big Beef (large red tomato)
Heirloom tomatoes? What are they?
Heirloom tomatoes are tomatoes whose seeds have been “passed down” through generations. Basically it is a non-hybrid, open pollinated tomato plant. They can be very interesting, different colors, flavors, sizes I try to always put at least one new heirloom in my garden just for giggles.
If your looking for unusual tomatoes and your local garden center does not have them here are a few resources:
📚 Tomatomania www.tomatomania.com Hosts various tomato sales of unusual plants in So Cal
📚 Wild Boar Farms www.wildboarfarms.com
HAPPY PLANTING
Feel free to to contact us with any gardening questions via email at www.containedbliss.com