On growing tomatoes
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layout: post
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title: "What I have learned about growing tomatoes"
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tags:
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- opinion
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- garden
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---
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To say that I'm an expert gardener would be an extraordinary stretching of the
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truth; capable, yes, expert, not even close. While I tend to focus on what
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crops fail outright, or produce lower-than-desired yields, my neighbors and
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some of the folks I know online seem to be impressed with my results.
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One of the crops I have grown each season since I started gardening has been
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tomatoes. As fickle as tomatoes can be, I seem to have consistently produced
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decent-or-better yields. In this post I would like to share what I have found
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to work, and not work, with growing tomatoes. The following is based on my own
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experimentation, and observations made of neighbors and friends.
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## Location
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This is the number one thing I notice other new gardeners mess up. It's common
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enough to where I have vocally lamented the placement of tomato plants in a
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neighbor's yard while walking the dog. I have also heard the complaints of
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friends, living in San Francisco, or somewhere equally overcast and foggy,
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complain about their weak tomato plants.
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Tomatoes need an absurd amount of sunlight. I genuinely don't think there is
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such a thing as "too much sun" for tomatoes.
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The location I have chosen for my tomatoes receives sunlight from dawn until
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dusk, which means at the high point of the summer the plants will be receiving
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more than 14 hours of sunshine.
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Delicious sunshine which they turn into delicious tomato.
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I think, without any scientific data to back this assertion up, that if your
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location doesn't guarantee 10+ hours of direct sunlight a day, tomatoes
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probably aren't suitable for that location.
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Assuming you do get 10+ hours, the next subject becomes very important.
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## Soil
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When I first started gardening, I was fortunate enough to have absolutely
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**garbage soil** in my backyard. This forced me to "build it from scratch", so
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I purchased many cubic feet of planting soil and manure. I still vividly recall
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that first season, the big, obviously a little slow, guy who worked at the
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garden supply store giggling as he loaded bags of manure into the back of my
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nice VW.
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As time has gone on, I have learned **so much more** about soil and soil
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health. I fancy myself an organic farmer, not because I have an aversion to
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chemicals and chemistry, but because I have a fondness for bugs and biology.
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Removing the tomato plants at the end of this 2017 season, I was absolutely
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astonished with how _strong_ and _dense_ the root systems were for the plants.
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Most certainly the strongest plants I have grown to date, with the most
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biologically active soil I have worked with to date.
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Soil health, primitively speaking, boils down to three areas:
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1. Nutrition
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1. Moisture
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1. PH
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**Nutrition**
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Planting soil by itself is not sufficient. One mistake I have noticed some
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folks make, will be buying some of that potting soil mix, plopping some tomato
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starts into it, and hoping for the best. Setting aside what I think of potting
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soil mixes (they suck) for a moment, planting soils provide some of the basic
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ingredients for success but are **inert**.
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Good soil must be **alive**.
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One of the mistakes I made early this season was just mixing manure into the
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soil. Putting manure into the soil isn't enough, good compost is necessary.
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**Compost provides the biology your plants need to be successful**.
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What I tried in the 2017 was layering roughly 2-3 inches of compost over the
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top of the soil partway through the season. The plants looked undernourished,
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which is subjective to say the least, but they simply looked weak and had
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little branches and leaves. I demand bushiness from my tomatoes!
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The compost seemed to really help kickstart the ecosystem in the garden box,
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and the tomato plants subsequently started to grow stronger more rapidly than
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they had previously.
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I would estimate that for my tomato bed there is probably 1/2 cubic yard of
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"planting soil", with 3-4 cubic feet of chicken manure, and approximately 5-6
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cubic feet of compost layered over the top mid-season.
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<center>
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<a data-flickr-embed="true"
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href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/agentdero/34128361464/in/album-72157683158804366/"
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title="North crop"><img
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src="https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4225/34128361464_22c3c1561d.jpg"
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width="500" height="375" alt="North crop"></a>
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</center>
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**Moisture**
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A lesson learned from the 2016 season in Santa Rosa was that the tops of the
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soil will _cook_ during the harsh mid-day summer sun. While those 14 hours of
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sun were helping the plants, the tops of the soil crusted and dried out the
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soil very rapidly.
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One of the things I learned recently about healthy and alive soil is that it
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retains water much better than "planting mix" does by itself. Inert soil acts
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like a dirty sieve for water to pass through, whereas _alive_ soil behaves
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much more like a sponge, soaking up the water. This in turn makes it much more
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available for the plants.
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What I did this season was layer straw mulch over **every inch** of exposed
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soil for every single bed, not just tomatoes. This practice combined with the
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addition of plenty of compost made for beds which provided adequate moisture to
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the tomatoes as they grew.
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Last season I lost a number of tomatoes to blossom-end rot which can be caused
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by poor soil nutrition and/or the water demands of the plant not being met.
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This year I didn't see a single tomato with blossom-end rot.
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One side benefit I noticed about the straw mulch is that it allowed a very
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active insect ecosystem to develop. I recall a number of times when I caught
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birds hopping through my beds, grabbing a delicious cricket or pill bug to eat.
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If you cannot **see** the life in your soil, it's probably not "alive" enough,
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and needs some help!
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**PH**
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A lesson I learned mid-way through this season is that soil pH is important.
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It's not necessarily be-all-end-all for soil health, but it is a good
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approximate measure of whether the soil is acidic enough for the plants to
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properly access the nutrients they need like Calcium, Magnesium, Phosphorus,
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and Nitrogen.
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This year, I purchased a meter (~$40) which tells me the soil pH, moisture
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level, and temperature, and immediately started testing. I was shocked to find
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out how far off almost every single one of my beds was from a "good" pH level.
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I spread some agriculture dolomite (limestone basically) along with my
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application of compost, which brought the pH back into "good" range within a
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week or so.
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---
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Setting aside any of the fancy tools you can buy, the number one thing I
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recommend looking for in your soil is whether there are insects. If there
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aren't bugs in your soil, then there probably aren't the little critters that
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bugs eat, and there aren't the bacteria which the little critters eat. And if
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those bacteria aren't there, there's nothing working symbiotically with your
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tomatoes to help them grow.
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Good soil is **alive**.
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## Trellising
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I grow my tomatoes in the classic tomato cages, which works fairly well. I do
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not however pay much attention to _how_ they grow in those cages. During the
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growth phase I will guide them up-and-out as necessary, but not much past that.
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I have never bothered pruning "suckers" from plants, but have read that some
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people see good results with it. I largely try to ensure that the vines are
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always supported and that any dead leaves are pruned immediately to allow other
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leaves to receive sunlight.
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My tomato plants look messy, which frankly, I'm okay with. I want them getting
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as much of that delicious sunlight as they can get!
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<center><a data-flickr-embed="true"
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href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/agentdero/35500651481/in/album-72157683158804366/"
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title="IMG_20170630_081658"><img
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src="https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4278/35500651481_5aecf89a21.jpg"
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width="500" height="375" alt="IMG_20170630_081658"></a>
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</center>
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## Weather
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One thing I learned in the 2017 season is how much the weather can affect the
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productivity of tomatoes. The biggest challenge this year has been dealing with
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the heat and aggressive sun.
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Due some exceptionally hot days this summer, I had a number of tomatoes develop
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thicker skins than I would like them to have. From my research, the best way I
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can defend against this in the future is with the use of shade cloth for the
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high points of the day to help reduce the temperature of the tomatoes
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themselves.
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We'll see how this goes next year, but it's worth keeping in mind that tomatoes
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won't "automatically" be delicious, there may be some week-to-week changes and
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management you need to perform to addresss the changing weather in your area.
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---
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The tips above are anecdotal at best. Take them with a grain of salt. For best
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success in your location, I strongly recommend keeping a log in a notebook of
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conditions, changes you make, and harvest over time. Referring back to this log
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at the beginning of the following season will help your plants improve with
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each successive year.
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If there's one thing you take to heart however, let it be this: **good soil is
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alive**.
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