Growing Tomatoes

As a prolific tomato grower (only because they're damn expensive in the uk if you want non gas ripened crap ones and theyre like a crack addiction), you don't need to fiddle around with all of that rubbish.<p>Plants of all kinds are pretty good at growing on their own with not much help from us if you know what their natural conditions would be. Granted you might get 10% less yield if you don't treat them nicely but its just not worth the 200% more effort.<p>Stick them in cheap compost indoors and keep moist with an atomiser spray until they germinate. Wait until they are about 3 inches high, then cut out with a spoon and wham in any old plant pot. When they are 15cm tall, feed 'em with cheap tomato food. When they are 25cm tall, yank them out of the pot, poke a 6' bamboo stick 12" into the ground and throw the plant in a hole at the front. Water daily. Tie to pole every so often. Tomatoes done.<p>Only consideration is don't grow them in the same place every year or they'll get diseased (technically rotate your crops) and make sure its in a very sunny bit.<p>Make your own compost as well for planting out. I just throw all my veg waste in a black bin and leave it for a year. Anything goes in except for tea bags and meats and plastics.<p>I spend about 3 hours a year on tomatoes and get literally 30-40kg using this method (street value here for same quality is around £480).<p>Get your seeds here (the last respectable seed shop): <a href="http://www.realseeds.co.uk/" rel="nofollow">http://www.realseeds.co.uk/</a>

Tomatoes are great fun to grow (try Sungold -- fantastic little yellow cherry tomatoes that you can't otherwise buy).<p>But if you're busy, have a go at chillis: no blight, no splitting, they tolerate under- and over-watering and poor soil, and there are a huge variety available (including some great-looking ornamentals). They have a much longer fruiting period so you're not overwhelmed by huge numbers of chillis at the same time.<p>If you put them on a sunny windowsill in winter they will survive and keep flowering and fruiting over winter (probably dont need to bother if you live somewhere like Southern California). You'll need to start using fertilizer if you do this.<p>You can just dry a chilli you like from the supermarket and use the seeds from that: germination rates are near 100%. Then once you're hooked, buy esoteric varieties on the internet.

Articles like this always make me a bit sad, as a keen gardener. It usually involves some "hip" but impractical course from a fancily named company who are masking over the fact that 90% of successful gardening is <i>digging a hole and watering</i>. In fact it boils down to two things:<p>* Basic gardening is not hard<p>* Fancy equipment is no substitution for practice &#38; experience<p>All of the equipment (and money) he mentioned did little to impact the problems faced when growing tomatoes; he still struggled with the common diseases (why do courses like that not teach about such things!!). Also, why are they handing round seeds with no sensible advice on flavour, treatment and scale! Aren't they supposed to be experts?<p>Some tomato basics:<p>* Tomatoes are great, they generally need very little attention and will fruit under even the worst gardener. BUT initially they <i>do need a very small amount of daily attention</i>!<p>* They grow bigger than you expect. BUT if you only give it a common garden cane to grow up this will help limit its growth :)<p>* General advice for all vegetable growing: plant in stages. And spend time picking your varieties depending on the time they fruit. I generally plant seeds once every fortnight during the early part of the year, to make sure everything doesn't crop at once! It seems this "love apple" totally failed to give this basic, and obvious, advice.<p>It depresses me how many hacks are around selling these gardening courses, when the reality is that it's simple to just get out there and have a go. First year round it won't work so well - but within 4 or 5 years you'll be a dab hand. I recommend trying lettuce as a first attempt - you can plant it straight out in the garden, it grows really quickly, requires minimal attention, and is basically impossible to get wrong (just don't plant the whole pack at once :D). In fact, pretty much anything you can plant out in rows and grows close to the ground will be easy to tend.<p>Most seed packets come with solid instructions to get the best from your plants, so don't neglect reading them. Oh, another helpful tip is to learn how to dig over &#38; fertilise a garden <i>properly</i> [1], as well as the basics of crop rotation - this will do a lot of improving your success rate.<p>To finish with an analogy; what "love apple" seem to be advising here, is similar to a non-programmer sitting down with the fresh install of Rails and reading a single page "How To" on "Cloning Amazon in three weeks".<p>1. <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/basics/techniques/soil_digging1.shtml" rel="nofollow">http://www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/basics/techniques/soil_diggin...</a>

Love Apple Farm's is a great local resource here in the south bay.<p>I've had mixed results with their tomatoes, mostly for not following their tried and true approach to nurturing your green leafed friends.<p>This year due to a great pepper plant I bought last year, I've been growing an abundant number of seedlings of assorted types. I plan on following the best practices from Love Apple for tomatoes, but will also look into nurturing the remaining plants.<p>The one thing I've found in raising your own plants from seeds is how much literature is dedicated to interacting with your seedlings.<p>I enjoy my time when I can work at home and interact with my seedlings.<p>If in the south bay and interested in some tomatoes or peppers, feel free to ping me. &#60;username&#62; at gmail.

Fun fact: Tomatoes love thrash and death metal.<p><a href="http://eksith.wordpress.com/2012/04/18/tomato-update/" rel="nofollow">http://eksith.wordpress.com/2012/04/18/tomato-update/</a> <a href="http://eksith.wordpress.com/2012/04/07/tomato-experiment/" rel="nofollow">http://eksith.wordpress.com/2012/04/07/tomato-experiment/</a><p>I don't know if this is only due to simply loud and/or harsh noises (I didn't check classical) or whether it's only applicable to this variety, but since I can't be attentive as I should be all the time, they worked as a wonderful babysitter.

I've been going to a large Bay Area tomato tasting for the last few years. In case anyone is looking for more recommendations, my favorites from last year were:<p>* Momotoro<p>* Exotic Blue Green<p>* Black Cherry<p>* Flamme'<p>* Indigo Rose<p>It's interesting how much the flavor varies from year to year, and from grower to grower. Sometimes I find a favorite variety to be blah the next, and vice versa. But I guess I've got to find a source for Orange Russian 117.

Growing tomatoes or anything really, is the perfect counter balance to working on a computer. I've solved many issues while removing suckers from tomatoes or spraying neem to ward off mold and pests.

Tomatoes are quite prolific and can be used in many types of dishes. For sauce, I like plum varieties roasted or dried; for sandwiches and snacking, I like black russians or yellow grape varieties.<p>Some people have already mentioned chilis as a good crop to grow along with tomatoes. Might as well grow cilantro too and you're halfway to a decent salsa (buy the onions, they ripen at a different time of year).<p>I also like to grow basil alongside my tomatoes. You can buy a nursery plant for the same cost as buying fresh basil for cooking from the grocery store, and the basil plant will produce all summer long. Sweet basil is great for pestos, margherita sandwiches and pizzas, and marinara sauce. Thai basil (which tastes of anise) is great for curries.<p>On the whole, I find that growing my own herbs gives me the most bang for the buck. It's still worth it to grow tomatoes since there's no way you can match the taste of a home-grown one.

I've just started growing this weekend and I'm super excited, we're starting with gardeners delight tomatoes and some chillies, once I've gotten into it a bit more we're going to expand out with a few others (onions and lettuce I think). It'll make an excellent diversion from coding.<p>It's great, I get a nice diversion and a load of fresh veg. Any extra I end up with will either go to friends and family, or if they're happy with it a local food bank.

One piece of advice I haven't seen yet is to pick varieties that are known to work well in your geographical area. Growing tomatoes in London or northern California is drastically different weather-wise than Texas. Where fancy heirlooms can work in the former, planting them here will net you a couple of really great tomatoes and mostly frustration.<p>Picking varieties that are known to work will with your climate will largely eliminate the need for the fish head-egg shell-aspirin voodoo. Though if you're into those things, feel free. Gardening is better if you experiment and enjoy yourself as most journeys are.

Ah... my house at Buenos Aires has around 10 trees that just produce all kinds of fruits. I harvest a lot of fruits, make homemade mermelade. And not to mention my particular collection of vine planted all around the park.

Awesome. My wife and I have actually taken classes with and grown tomatoes from the folks mentioned in the article. I recommend it if you can and are nearby.

For those looking for his favourite seeds (Orange Russian) in the UK. I just ordered some from here:<p><a href="http://www.heirloomtoms.org/store/index.php?app=gbu0&#38;ns=prodshow&#38;ref=oruss" rel="nofollow">http://www.heirloomtoms.org/store/index.php?app=gbu0&#38;ns=...</a><p>Was the only place I could find, but seems to be run by a passionate tomato ninja, and checkout was relatively painless.

Pleasantly surprised by how fun and informative I found this article.<p>I initially suspected the title was a metaphor of some sort, and almost stopped reading. Very glad I didn't - you've inspired me to give it a try! :)

<a href="http://www.readersdigest.com.au:8888/how-to-grow-tomatoes" rel="nofollow">http://www.readersdigest.com.au:8888/how-to-grow-tomatoes</a>

Baia Nicchia: Bay Area tomato farm <a href="http://baianicchia.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow">http://baianicchia.blogspot.com/</a>

so i read this correctly over half of the produce was lost with so much effort. fertiliser and soil treatments people! fish heads. hipsters got too much time for their own good

Joe Hewitt is back!

You could skip a lot of work by buying already potted plants. Let a professional do that, it's not worth for the 50-100 you need. Steel cages are great if you have 20-40 year plans or have money to waste. Otherwise you can buy a few 2X4s and then create some sort of net with sticks and wire. Each plant is then tied to it and you direct the bigger branches to spread. Yeah they need some fertilizer for better production and maybe pesticide but that's about it. If the land hasn't been used for ages, it will be even better.<p>Of course you can walk into a nursery and come out of it with $2K in equipment, but it's not really needed. You <i>may</i> get say 1.25 lbs more per plant more but...you can plant more and work much less. Tomato plants are resilient and there should be no drama when growing them. Plant them in stages, tie them to the "net," water them, remove the grass and maybe spray them with pesticide. That's all folks!