While you can find good food throughout the year. Only in summer can you experience the totally ripe, warm from the sun, tomato.
Grow
Everyone has their own hints for tomato growing. I have three hints. Take your time. Space them out. Water well.
Take your time. Tomatoes love hot weather. Sure you can plant them early, protect them, worry about every frost and cold night. I find it easier, and healthier for the plants if I just wait until the soil is good and warm and all danger of frost is over. It isn't until then that the tomatoes will start growing anyway.
This year my tomatoes were planted very late. But they soon caught up. Most of the plants tower over me, reaching six feet at least. Nearly everyone that sees my tomatoes wonder what I do to them. Really, nothing. They apparently like my soil conditions.
Space them out. I learned after a few years experience that tomatoes grow like their on steroids in my garden. It may look like I'm wasting space, but I give them lots of room. I find this helps cut back disease and blight when there is plenty of airflow around the plants. Besides if you have tomato plants that grow this big, you just don't need many.
Everyone has their own opinion on stakes and cages. I love a large metal cage. Attached to a heavy metal stake, these cages can support these huge plants. A smaller wooden stake just pulls out of the ground when the plant grows heavy and a wind blows.
Water well. Even if we do not face a summer like last year's drought, (and so far this summer is looking just like it) often there is at least a short dry spell. Supplying consistent water means better tomatoes and less dry rot. Spacing out the plants and mulching also help conserve moisture.
Other places I wrote about growing tomatoes are linked here.
Planting tomatoes
My experience with several different Tomato varieties
Pests
I haven't experienced a lot of pest problems. Sometimes a ground hog will take a bite out a low growing tomato. Last year the neighbor's peacocks took a daily stroll through our garden and a enjoyed succulent breakfast of tomatoes. We found a tomato horn worm on our plants last year but didn't destroy it because the parasite wasp had already found him.
Preserve
My tomatoes are just beginning. We have had lots of hot weather but they seem to be taking their time. Since there is so few, I wash, remove the cores and place them in the freezer. Eventually my tomatoes will ripen faster and I'll get out my frozen supply and have the thickest tomato sauce painlessly!
We are not huge raw tomato eaters. A few on a sandwich, on eggs, pizza, and occasionally just sliced as a side dish are enjoyed but the majority are preserved for winter.
Some of our favorite preserving recipes.
pizza sauce
ketchup
tomato soup
barbecue sauce
sundried tomatoes
salsa
I love the Amish Paste tomato since it is thick and meaty like a Roma but much larger and easy to pick.
Now I loved to hear from you. What is your favorite growing tip? How do you use tomatoes?
Linked at Tuesday Garden Party
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