How to grow Tomatoes!

HOW TO GROW TOMATOES

Buy your tomato plants from Food Home Growns Urban Nursery for only a $1.
Is a tomato a fruit or vegetable? Well it depends on who you ask, but it is really a fruit. It is classified as a vegetable for culinary purposes. Tomatoes are rich in lycopene which may have health benefits. Back during Colonial times, people would not put a tomato near their mouth let alone try to eat one. They believed that the tomato was poison, and that if you ate one it would turn you blood to acid. So tomatoes were grown originally for decoration purposes only. Tomatoes are from the Nightshade family. Tomatoes range in size from 1 cm to 10 cm in diameter. There is around 7,500 different verities of tomatoes differing in shape and colors. Tomatoes are resistance to diseases, but the can get tobacco mosaic virus, and for that purpose smoking around your plant is discouraged.

Growing Your Tomatoes:Step 1- Plant your seed into a pot of soil. Once your seedlings get their first leaves then transplant them in a 4 inch pot so they have room to branch out. If they can’t branch out it will affect its growth.
Step 2- Make sure your plants get plenty of direct sunlight or 14-16 hours under a grow light. Plant them in the most sunny spot in your garden.
Step 3- Put a fan on your tomatoes plant for 5-10 minutes twice a day to encourage strong stalk.
(Skip steps 1-3 and just buy your plant for $1.00 from us!)
Step 4- Preheat your soil a couple of week before planting it in the ground. You can do this by putting black plastic on the ground. This will encourage earlier tomatoes.
Step 5- Dig the hole deep enough to put the plant into its first set of top leaves.
Step 6- Cover the ground around plant to protect the soil and help keep in water.
Step 7- Take off any dead leaves, because they will make the plant sick.
Step 8- Prune off any spikes to keep the plant health.
Step 9- Water the plant a lot while the plant is growing. Once tomatoes start blooming cut back on the water to increase the natural sugar.
Step 10- Pick your fruit and enjoy your hard work.

　

　

When you are picking which Tomatoes to grow out of the thousands of types,

Be sure to keep in mind that indeterminate means this plant will produce fruit all summer and Determinate means your fruit will come all at once.(Great for canning)

I’ll be posting a list of the Tomato plants we currently have at Food Home Growns Nursery along with pics of each type of fruit later tonight.