Assuming you have got your plants planted, whether that is in the soil or in some sort of container, and remembering to make sure that you do not put them in too early which would risk exposure to frost (not good), you will need to start thinking about ongoing care.

Bush type tomatoes (determinate tomato plants) grow to a set size and don’t really need any staking or pruning.

Vine plants (indeterminate tomato plants) on the other hand will need support and there are many ways of supporting them. A popular method is to use tomato cages, but using stakes or string is equally effective. Whatever way you choose make sure that the individual trusses are properly supported as the plant grows and take off any side shoots that appear, especially near the ground, to keep the growth under control and direct all the nutrients and water to the fruit bearing trusses.

Once the plant has developed 4 to 6 trusses the main stem should be pinched off about 2 leaves above the top truss. The 4 to 6 rule really depends on your available growing season and type of plant. For example in the UK you should probably only allow 4 trusses if planting outdoors but you will probably be OK with 6 trusses if greenhouse growing. Elsewhere in the world where you potentially have a better climate you may get away with more trusses outdoors, this is really a judgment call which needs to made based on climate and the length of your growing season.

Watering is very important, you need to set up a regime that ensures your plants are never dried out but equally important they should not be saturated either. Pots and or growbags tend to need more watering as they can dry out more quickly than if you have planted in the ground, 2 or 3 times a day is recommended or you can make use of an automatic watering system.

Feeding tomatoes is less important for plants in the soil, especially if the ground has been properly prepared but again if the plants are in pots or growbags they will benefit from regular feeding.

Its best to use a formulated tomato feed and to work with the instructions on the bottle for feeding. As a rule of thumb once or twice a week is good depending on the feed you use. If you prefer to feed twice a week and this contradicts the instructions on your chosen feed you can, for example, half the dose and deliver the same amount of feed but applying it twice instead of once. It’s really up to you and you will see from the results whether that works better in your environment, remembering of course not to exceed the recommended amount on the instructions.

If you are just starting don’t be scared to experiment and treat 1/2 your crop one way and the other 1/2 another way to find out what works best. As soon as you notice a difference you can adjust your regime to the best method.

A final tip on how to pollinate tomatoes, when the flowers are on the plants they tend to pollinate themselves with no problem, but it doesn’t hurt to help them along with a little bit of gentle shaking to dislodge the pollen, particularly if they are inside a greenhouse.

Everyone knows that tomatoes need to be watered properly to extract the best and juiciest fruit. But what exactly does that mean and what is too little or too much water for a tomato vine? There is a happy balance to be struck when watering tomatoes and one way of achieving that balance in a very effective way is to employ the use of a self watering system for getting exactly the right amount of water to your tomato plants.

So why is a self watering system so effective?

In order to explain that you need to understand that tomatoes love the right amount of water. They will suffer badly if the soil they are planted in is allowed to go dry, but they can also be over watered which will impede the amount of air exchange between the soil and the roots. This will affect how well the plant grows and the amount of fruit they produce.

So what is required is a happy balance of keeping the soil moist whilst avoiding drenching of the roots. The watering program you implement will clearly need to take into account whether the plants are in a greenhouse, when they are entirely dependent on the watering program, or whether they are located in the garden, in which case they may get water if it rains.

Using a self watering system that can be controlled by a timer will help ensure that you can meter the water to meet your exact requirements, a little trickier for the second scenario admittedly but still very effective. The other benefit of course is that the method is not entirely dependent on someone actually doing the watering so if you have a busy lifestyle and are not always available the tomatoes still get the required quota of water.

There is a slight downside to self watering systems in that you are not necessarily inspecting your plants each day and you may miss the early signs of disease or insect infestation so you will need to pay particular attention to this aspect and try to look at your plants at least once a day. Well worth the effort for the better crops that can be yielded as a result.

So for happy, healthy and fruitful tomato vines, make sure that you pay particular attention to the watering program and whether you elect to water them yourself or use a self watering system, provide a happy medium about mid way between dry and drenched.

Visit Grow A Tomato for more tips and advice on tomato growing and to get access to expert advice that could double or triple the size of your crop of tomatoes.

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The same principles apply whether you want to grow tomatoes, peppers or any other vegetables, there are 4 key aspects that need to be given consideration, the solution may not be the same for each type of plant but this is what you need to determine.

So what are the 4 basic aspects that you need to consider for growing any vegetables or fruit: -

• Location
• Soil preparation
• Watering plan
• Plant care and maintenance

What you sometimes have to accept is that if you cannot supply the right conditions for the product you want to grow then maybe you should select some other option that will thrive in your environment and give you your best chance of succeeding.

In this post we are going to be discussing what is required for good tomato growing and what we need to ensure so that when you grow your tomatoes you are going to have at the end, fresh red tomatoes that are juicy, full of flavour and will compliment any table.

First Consideration – best location for tomatoes

A key element of producing the best tasting , juicy red tomatoes (assuming you are growing red tomatoes) is to ensure they are placed in a location where they will get a minimum of 6 hours of sunshine every day, many people prefer it if you can actually select a location that will provide up to 10 hours sunshine but the minimum requirement is 6 hours.  It does not matter if you are tight for space, you can put your tomato plant in a pot or hang tomatoes upside down in a tomato plant hanger or use a greenhouse to grow tomatoes. As long as you can get the required quota of sunlight that will be fine.

Second Consideration – preparing the soil for tomato growing

It is fairly well known that tomatoes need water and that the plants should not be allowed to dry out, they also need plenty of nutrients from a nitrogen rich compost and the first stage of achieving this is proper soil preparation.

Preparing the soil for tomatoes requires a 2 pronged approach, you need to provide a base of mulch in the soil in order to help retain moisture and you need to mix a ‘high in nitrogen’ compost mix to the soil to ensure that the plants can get enough nutrients when the fruit starts to develop. This applies whatever medium you are using to grow your tomato plants, plant pot, plant hanger or straight into the soil.

It is also better to place your tomato plants deep in the soil so make sure that you have dug deep enough to allow this or used a big enough container. Tomato plants can grow roots from any portion of the stem so once in the ground a new root system will develop to take advantage of the deep planting.

Third Consideration – Watering Tomato Plants

Regular watering of tomato plants is an essential requirement, my recommendation is that you water your plants 3 times a day. The objective you are aiming for is that the plants should not be completely drenched in water but also should never be allowed to dry out completely. The first scenario can prevent the proper air to root interface in the soil required for the plant to absorb the nutrients and  thrive. The second scenario will also result in poor absorption  of  nutrients and the fruit is likely to wither and the skin can split, not very attractive or very tasty.

If you are busy and feel you cannot provide this level of service to a watering program then you may want to consider purchasing a watering system. Not completely ideal in terms of you inspecting your plants first hand less often, but great for establishing a very accurate metered watering scheme for your plants. I personally favour a watering system because many people have busy lifestyles and it is easy to forget to water with potentially disastrous affects.

Forth Consideration – Tomato plant care and maintenance

There are 3 parts to tomato plant care and maintenance:

• proper support of the fronds
• preventing tomato disease
• preventing the attack of harmful pests

There are various means of supporting tomato plants, tomato cages, upside down tomato planters (i.e. self supporting as they simply hang down from the root ball), staking and stringing. Whichever you choose remember that tomato plants are quite tender and will bruise easily, so when/if tying them off make sure that you use a soft string and do not tie too tightly. The other point is that it does not matter so much which method you choose as long as you select one of them and ensure that the fronds are well supported with a structure that is strong enough to take the weight when the fruit appears.

Preventing disease is easy enough to achieve by pruning the lower branches of the tomato plant in order to ensure that there is no contact with the ground where most disease will be contracted. In addition to that keep an eye out for any leaves that are drying out or turning yellow, these should be removed and disposed of.  It is also worth pointing out that it is best to retain just the main core fronds and to remove any excess growth, this will keep the plant size manageable and will ensure that the remaining growth stays healthy and well fed with nutrients and water.

Better lots of good fruit from a smaller, healthier plant than poor quality fruit from an overabundance of growth.

There are 2 trains of thought on managing pests, either to use a pesticide and spray occasionally, twice a week should be sufficient, or to introduce predators that feed on the bad pests so are,in effect, tomato friendly . The latter is a bit more specialist although a perfectly legitimate approach especially if you prefer organic gardening.  I suppose there is also a half way house and that is to use naturally produced pesticides that are less likely to be harmful to the environment, I actually like this option the best as I believe it to be a very good compromise and much easier to manage.

Well those are the nuts and bolts of how to grow tomatoes and at this basic level it really is about the science of vegetable growing rather than art. I believe art does  play a small part and there is in my opinion those amongst us that have green fingers and an artful way of producing the best crops from everything they touch and there are those that perhaps do not have this natural gift but if they stick to the science will still achieve very satisfactory results. I will leave you to decide which camp you think you fall into.