Everything about tomatoes mouth of summer — their tart flavor , juicy texture , ripe , red color — oh , the joyfulness ! But before northerly nurseryman get to the first big , fertile slice of tomato plant , they must plant , prune , pee and care for their tomatoes . Over its 150 year of publishing garden selective information , love apple have been a frequent — sometimes controversial — topic . Here are some of our favored tomato tips from the archive :
call up : Tomatoes necessitate sun and air circulation . Way back in 1899 , August Wittmann of Merriam Park in St. Paul described his love apple technique to attain his goal of “ former , smooth and large - sized fruit for the market . ” raft of airwave and Dominicus are necessities , he say . He planted his seedlings scurvy in the basis than they were in the dope so as to get a stronger root arrangement .
Do n’t hurry planting . Whittmann never planted tomato plant out of their cold skeleton before May 20 , and Duluth gardener Homer Hall recommend in 1951 that gardeners in northern Minnesota wait until at least June 1 to plant , possibly June 15 for ripe solution . A tomato in cold ground will only sit and sulk , so do n’t rush them .
Choose varieties with a range of harvest times, including some early cherry or grape tomatoes.
Fertilize , but not too much . Whittmann set his tomatoes in a garden space that had been given “ a liberal dressing of manure—8 bushels per 100 square foot — and each works received a dose of 5 - 10 - 5 fertilizer at planting .
Mulch to cut back disease and keep plants moist . In MSHS ’ “ Good Gardener ” series of Good Book from the 1990s , Lawrence Rule recommended gardener mulch their tomato to prevent them from going from over - wet to over - dry conditions ( often a forerunner to blossom death rot ) . He also recommended you not hoe around tomato plant after the first week because the plant has shallow eater roots .
opt sort for a longer harvest time of year . Our time of year is short and some writers in MSHS publications recommend never opt a tomato variety that takes more than 75 solar day to mature . We think you could fight that , but the melodic theme of choosing several love apple varieties with different adulthood dates is a effective one . Pick an early time of year love apple , such as a cherry red orStupice;two or more that are mid - season and maybe one or two big , farsighted time of year varieties . Looking for some great tomato plant to essay ? Here’sa listfrom several geezerhood ago of heirlooms that do well in our climate and
Choose varieties with a range of harvest times, including some early cherry or grape tomatoes.
With pruning the question is yield vs. quality vs. disease . Over more than 20 year , Dr. T.M. Currence sporadically wrote about his studies of tomato plant that were rationalise and staked vs. those that were not . In an clause in 1961 , he draw outcome of three mathematical group of tomatoes : one group was rationalize and staked , one was adventure but not dress , and one was not rationalize or staked . you could show it for yourself here , but the upshot was that there is n’t much difference in payoff with staked and pruned vs. unpruned love apple , but staking tomatoes did seem to increase the sizing of fruits . Overall , pruning had fiddling effects on the plant life .
Prune heavily in low space . An article in Minnesota Horticulturist recommended that even in a very modest garden , tomatoes be spaced at least 1 foot apart . Doing this , however , demand that the plants be lop to a exclusive prow . hit all side shoots or branches before they are more than 4 inches long , and use a support secure cord that can be woven around the tomato to arrest it steady .
Rotate tomato in the garden . tomato are somewhat disease prone and many of the disease are grunge - bear . So it ’s a honest estimation to move them around , according to Lawrence Rule . I have my tomatoes on a three twelvemonth rotation so that they are never in the same infinite more than once every three year .
Suckers are one of the first things tomato growers should remove.
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