Posts Tagged ‘Growing Tomatoes’

PLANT A GARDEN IN A 3X6 SPACE WITH LOTS OF VEGETABLES

December 1st, 2009

There are several ways to approach the growing of a vegetable garden. The first being rather obvious by utlizing a portion of your property and prepare this area for the establishment of a garden. The second method is the construction of a raised bed which maybe done for many reasons one being the lack of space to provide for a large garden directly in the earth.

This method also has other noteable advantages. In my years of doing raised beds,I have noticed less attacks by devouring insects and less diseases in general. This is probably due to the fact that your planting soil is above the ground which gives you the means to control the soil that just exists in your raised garden.

Before I can discuss the size of your kitchen garden,it still requires some of the same thought given to an in ground vegetable garden. The location of your raised bed garden is very important in regard to sunglight,wind and water. The kitchen garden is going to require a minimum of five hours of sunlight per day up to a maximum of ten hours. The closer you can reach the maximum sunlight the better it will be for your vegetables. A spot should be picked where the wind is not going to be a major factor in beating up some vegetables or drying out your raised bed soil too rapidly.

It is important to locate your kitchen garden at least reasonably within hose reach of a water supply. A raised bed kitchen garden will require a little more attention to moisture than a garden planted in the soil of the earth. If you have the means,you may want to consider an overhead spinning sprinkler with a timer to provide daily moisture to your kitchen garden. Just remember when nature provides you with rainy days to turn off the timer or you may have more moisture than is necessary causing other growing problems.

The size of your raised bed can be almost any size as long as you have the ability to reach all areas of the kitchen garden. I would recommend a size ranging from 3×6 feet to 4×8 feet.You are not going to believe what can be grown in a kitchen garden of this size. The best structure for the bed is cedar boards at least 7 inches high. If you purchase 8 foot boards and have the yard where you bought it cut one board in half then you could have sides as high 10 inches. You can either nail the boards together or purchase corner supports,available on line from several garden spots or you can purchase the entire unit depending your budget limitations.

Other items required will be a roll of weed mat installed inside of your raised bed to prevent weeds from entering your raised bed. A layer of small stones about two to three inches deep for good drainage and last but not least bagged top soil to fill your raised bed. All of these items can be purchased at your local garden shop. You can also buy loose top spoil from some area shops and delivered to your site. This will result in a lot of extra work shoveling the soil into the kitchen garden rather than dumping bags.

Now what exactly can you plant lets say in a 3×6 raised bed that will provide you with an interesting vegetable garden and enough product to consume? You will need to pick the vegetables you like or want to grow and maybe it will be a few or many vegetables. Here is an example of a variety of vegetables placed in a 3×6 raised bed.

First measure it off into squares with each square equaling a square foot and this is what you could plant in a 3×6 raised bed utlizing a square foot for each vegetable. sixteen carrots,one broccoli,one eggplant,6 leeks,9 onions,two potatoe plants,sixteen radish plants,one winter squash,two plants of parsley,two plants of cumcumbers,nine plants of spinach and,because I like the following,these were planted in two of the squares, one tomato plant in each square,two basil plants each square,two peppers in each square and one square with two kale plants. As you can invision the combinations are endless and frankly provides for a tremendous variety but this mix can easily be changed to match your taste.You can also use other vegetables that are not listed here here by determining the space requirements for the each plant.

If you want to know how to plant each of the vegetables or other gardening information concerning your kitchen garden then go to gardenersgardening for more detail and a picture of the diagram discussed above go to site specified in the box below.

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Posted in Planting Tomatoes

Tags: Gardening Growing Carrots Growing Peppers Growing Tomatoes Raised Bed Raised Bed Gardening Vegetable Gardening

Hanging Tomato Planters – Make Hanging Planters Work for You

November 30th, 2009

Looking for ways to improve your tomato yields? Or maybe you don’t have a traditional garden, and are looking for a way to grow tomatoes on your porch, or maybe an apartment balcony. Growing tomatoes is almost a national pastime, and we are always on the hunt for better ways to grow tomatoes. So let’s take a look at some of the advantages of growing tomatoes in hanging planters.First, as we mentioned, a hanging planter can be used in many places where a traditional garden is out of the question. For a condo or apartment dweller, some type of balcony planter is the only option, and a hanging planter is probably the most efficient use of space. This can work for a patio as well.You have very few problems with weeds and a hanging planter, as you control the soil mix yourself, and can even use a soil less mix if you want which will also control many diseases as well. And you can change it out every year to further reduce soil borne diseases. The limited surface area of a planter controls weeds, too.Since the plants are hanging, and the vines grow down, the whole issue of needing tomato cages and stakes is virtually eliminated. If you use a determinant variety, even the need for pruning is reduced.You can extend your growing season as well, since you can move the plant inside for those nights at the beginning and end of the growing season that are just cold enough to kill the plant, but if you can get through one or two of them you can get an extra week or two of growing season.The thing to keep in mind with any container gardening is to water well, as this will make or break the success of your tomatoes in a planter. And of course some planters work better than others for this.

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Posted in Planting Tomatoes

Tags: Gardening Growing Tomatoes Hanging Tomato Planters

Tomato Growing Tips – Improving Your Tomato Yields

November 29th, 2009

Almost anyone can grow tomatoes in their garden, and it’s quite popular. It’s no mystery why, as anyone who has sliced a fresh tomato on a sandwich, or popped a Sweet 100 in their mouth while still standing in the garden knows that the taste of commercially grown tomatoes doesn’t compare to a fresh garden tomato.

Tips for Improving your tomatoes:

Start with where you plant your tomatoes. Are you planning on growing the tomatoes in the garden or in a container. In either setting, a well drained, loamy soil is preferred, with a pH of somewhere between 6 and 7, which is slightly on the acidic side. Work in some well rotted compost, if it is not thoroughly decomposed it will rob nitrogen from the soil, and the tomatoes will suffer. If you going to use the garden, it may be preferable to use a raised bed garden to ensure proper drainage. It will also allow you to create the soil that your tomatoes want.

If you are looking at container grown tomatoes, there are several choices. A large self watering container, like the commercially available Earthbox is a great choice, as it solves one of the biggest problems with container grown plants, which is the tendency for them to quickly dry out.

Supporting your tomatoes is critical to their optimum production. This can be done with stakes or cages. But one other approach is to use hanging planters. By letting the tomato vines hang down from the planter, they are supported on the top end, and the need to stake or cage is eliminated. This is true for the upside down tomato planters as well, which also relieve the stress on the vine as it drapes over the edge of a traditional hanging planter.

Hanging planters have other advantages like eliminating the need for bending or stooping to work on them. And all the container approaches let you put tomatoes in places that normally can’t hold a garden, like and apartment or condo, or just the back patio or deck.

There are many other tips to great tomato gardening, like the proper selection of tomato varieties, the type of fertilizer to use, proper pruning, and plant spacing, when it’s best to plant, and more…

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Posted in Planting Tomatoes

Tags: Growing Tomatoes Tomato Gardening tomato tips

Growing Tomatoes Indoors All Year

November 29th, 2009

Growing tomatoes indoors is a hobby that can be very rewarding, in more ways than one. Not only will you get to enjoy the fruits of your labor so to speak, but you’ll also have the deep satisfaction that comes along with knowing that you grew the tasty fruit yourself! Speaking from experience, the tomatoes always taste better when they are grown at home than those you can buy in any produce stand or grocery store.

Tomatoes are the base ingredient in many products that you can easily make at home, and growing tomatoes indoors can make the entire list that much fresher! Among many other things, some of the more obvious things you can make from the fresh tomatoes you have grown are salsa, homemade spaghetti sauce just like from the old country, then of course there is juice and many other products.

For starters, you’ll want to choose from a variety of tomato that is not susceptible to cracking. These types will do better indoors under lights, and as an added bonus, these are also better suited when you want to make tomato paste and sauce. Next you will want to prepare a good starting soil mixture. The best I have found is a standard potting soil mixture that includes about 10% or so of worm castings already added. You can balance the ph of the soil by adding a teaspoon of hydrated lime to each gallon of potting soil. This is rich in calcium and is absolutely great for the tomatoes. This calcium prevents the blossoms from rotting later on down the line. You don’t want to start the soil too wet. Adding water a little at a time until you can get just about 2 or 3 drops of water out of it when you squeeze. Anything more than that and you will want to dry the soil out some before you start to use it.

Now, starting seeds is a critical time for the tomato plants. The resulting plants are delicate and need to be handled with care in the early stages of development. I recommend using nursery flats (these are the trays that have many sections) to start the seeds off. The larger ones are best. This way you don’t have to worry over transplanting them as they get bigger. By the time they outgrow that tray, they will be strong enough to handle easily.

Tomatoes germinate best at about 80 degrees and you’ll find that most of the seeds that you have planted will be up in about 12-15 days. Once they have begun popping up, you will want to remove the covers if they were used on the trays. At this point, you will want to use fluorescent lights placed about 6 inches above the plants and leave the lights on then for at least 18 hours of the day, and better still, leave them on 24 hours if possible.

By now you’re well on your way to having really great tasting tomatoes! Take good care of them and they will bear some fantastic fruit no matter what time of the year it is!

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Posted in Planting Tomatoes

Tags: Grow Tomatoes Grow Tomatoes Indoors Growing Tomatoes Growing Tomatoes Indoors How To Grow Tomatoes How To Grow Tomatoes Indoors Tips On Growing Tomatoes Indoors

Growing Tomatoes – How to Avoid Common Problems

November 28th, 2009

Flower Set and Blossom Drop.One of the most exciting moments in tomato growing is when flowers begin to fade and the first little pea-like fruits appear. Each day they grow a little bigger until they reach their mature size when they start to change colour and become ripe tomatoes. They look almost too good to eat! However, temperatures and humidity have to be right for flowers to set fruit. If flowers fail to set, blossom drop is the result and those pretty little blooms wither and break off at the knuckle. To avoid blossom drop, mist and tap plants daily to help release pollen. If the weather is particularly hot and dry, also water around the base of plants to increase humidity.

Watering and Blossom End Rot.Watering can be a tricky business when it comes to tomatoes especially if they are grown in containers. However, correct watering can help avoid blossom end rot, which is caused by a lack of calcium when the fruits are swelling and leaves a dark leathery patch on the underside of the tomatoes. The first aim should be to keep the entire root area moist by giving them a thorough watering once a week (especially when the fruits are swelling) and water moderately in between. The reason is that roots are only able to feed and absorb nutrients (including calcium) from areas of soil that are moist. If half of the soil that your plant is growing in is dry, calcium uptake may also be reduced by half. Increase Aeration.One way to keep tomato plants healthy, especially when grown in a confined space such as a greenhouse or where they may be planted close together, is to increase aeration. This may be done by removing old, lower leaves below the first truss to improve air circulation. Deleafing.Opinion about deleafing varies considerably. Some gardeners will leave most leaves on their plants which helps shield tomatoes from direct sunlight. Too much direct sunlight and heat can cause sun scald, greenback and blotchy ripening. Some growers, especially those who grow in greenhouses, remove all leaves below the truss that is producing ripe fruit. This enables plants resourses to be directed into the fruit rather than having to support lots of leaves. Plants grown in greenhouses do not usually have their fruit in direct sunlight for long periods, so avoid the problems of sun scald etc.Watering and Disease.When watering, avoid splashing soil up onto the lowest leaves which may transfer soil infections into a plant through the leaves. Splashing water up onto growing fruit may also create ghost spot which is caused by grey mould soil spores and displays small transparent water-like rings. It’s also a good idea to pull off suckers, side shoots and leaf branches by hand rather than cut them because the blades of knives and scissors can spread disease from one plant to another.