Complete Comprehensive Guide to Growing Tomatoes - Care, fertilizing, staking, pruning, and MORE!

What's going on? Welcome everyone to another very exciting episode here on the My Gardener channel. I am very excited about today's video and I hope you are too because we are going to make a

complete

and

comprehensive

guide

on tomato

care

. To walk you through every single thing we do to our

tomatoes

because we get asked all the time Luke, how does he do it? What are you doing? As it does? Can you walk us through the next steps? every year to make your tomato plants look so amazing, that's what we will do. We'll

guide

you through plant selection spacing, fertilization, just various

care

tips and tricks that will help your plants stay healthier and produce

more

.

I'm going to go over everything, so stay tuned, it's going to be a packed episode. I can't wait, let's get into it, so the first thing I want to talk about is tomato selection. You have determinate and indeterminate

tomatoes

. Determinate tomatoes are basically a tomato plants that are determined by their size and yield, things like that, you don't want to determine it as a tomato because we grow with a method called single stem, single stem means we remove all these side growths, which I'll show you up close. in a second. and those lateral growths will inevitably produce a

complete

ly different plant, essentially they will produce

more

lateral growth and also flower and become a shrub that you don't want to plant because it restricts airflow and also doesn't grow upright.

It doesn't promote that upward growth, it promotes more bushy outward growth, so to avoid that bushy outward growth, we come in here and prune all the side shoots keeping them on a single stem, which is where it gets its stem name. unique and then what that allows us to do is allow us to hold a single stake, which we'll get to in a moment as well, but that single stake allows us to grow many plants in a small area, which also ties into how we grow, which is high intensity, high intensity is basically relative to how many plants you can fit in a given space, every plant is different with space, you know, tomatoes are very different from lettuce, very different from garlic, but in this space here Basically, we are getting the maximum amount of tomato plants that you can get without causing stress.

This allows you to grow much more food in much less space. It's a really great method, but it's important that you choose an indeterminate tomato so it can do this. you can grow it like this because an indeterminate tomato will grow all season long a determinate tomato will stop after a certain time because everything is determined, you know, it determines how high it goes, how much fruit it gives, so once it's done it stops

growing

and it stops.

growing

an indeterminate tomato will produce all season long and since we use eight foot tall stakes you want a nice long season so you can get a nice long harvest it makes more sense that way so the first thing What you want is an indeterminate tomato.

The next thing we do is fertilize. This is a very important step to ensure your plants stay healthy and producing all season long. When you grow in a high intensity environment, you have a lot of plants in a small area, which means your soil has to be very fertile, so we use trifecta plus to make sure the soil is as healthy and fertile as possible. It also ensures that it is fed throughout the season so we have a lot of nitrogen that we get in the start which gives us our nice green growth which helps speed up the growth helps the plant get established and then it also has a release phosphorus slow that gives the plant the flowers and fruit production it really needs.

It also has a high amount of potassium. which helps with fruit set, it also has a lot of calcium which helps with blossom end rot, that's why we use trifecta plus, we really use it on everything, but we really love it for tomatoes because you'll see the best, you know? best results using it, so that's what we use, but again, just make sure you use an all-purpose fertilizer, at least something that's really well balanced, something that gives your plants not only nitrogen but also phosphorus and potassium that way. If you have a very full plant, you'll want to fertilize it heavily at first, right when you plant it, and then as soon as you start to see some fruit and flower production, it's smart to go back a second time and just give them some.

Sometimes we use a little bit of top dressing and give them two or three tablespoons after we start to see some flowers and fruits just to make sure they have enough fertilizer to carry them through the entire season, the next thing I want. talking about

pruning

this is what we get into when we start talking about single stem this is very, very important if you want to grow just like we grow and that is because we remove all the lateral growth, a lateral growth can be seen in the armpit of each tomato, so getting closer you can check this because it is very important to identify what you want to achieve and what you want to keep because essentially you want to keep it on one main stem, everything else can Go here is a tomato plant that has many things in it game, it looks absolutely beautiful, don't get me wrong, but it has a lot of lateral growth, this is because we let this one go rogue for this example, here you can see there is this stem that looks like a tomato plant there is a stem that looks like a tomato plant there is a stem that looks like it has a tomato plant there is the stem that looks like a tomato plant this den that looks like a tomato plant and so on There are probably 10 or 15 shoots on this plant and what you don't want is not wanting them all because if you leave them all they will produce whole plants, that's why they all look like their own plant because if I Take it down to the base and you will see that they all come from one main stem.

One main stem is producing all of this. So why do tomato plants produce what are called suckers? These shoots are removed quite easily, but they look like whole tomatoes. The plants are because they will fruit and flower like a normal tomato plant, but you can see if they all grow, not only is the energy divided between all of those plants, but also the airflow is really restricted, so what we want to do. Do we want to go in and get them all out before we start doing things anyway? Although I've done this before so I know what I'm doing, but you want to be able to find what the main stem is. and how we do it is we start at the base, we start at the base of the plant, we peel everything back and you'll see this main stem going up, follow that main stem going up all the way to the end, it'll keep going. up and usually it already has flowers, all this new growth, all these shoots here, they can be pulled out quite easily with a twist on both sides and if they are not ripe enough, you will see that they do not have If they have flowers, it's time to get them to remove them, but they will generally not have flowers because the main growing stem is usually the first to bear fruit, so you.

We will have flowers here flowers here and since there are no flowers anywhere else, that is pretty much its main stem, it is also the straightest growth, many times the shoots will come out at a 45 degree angle and start to grow outwards, the main stem in growth it will pretty much be a straight line from top to bottom this is also how you choose your main growing stem because obviously you want it to grow up a pole so you don't want something growing at a 45 degree angle so choose your main growing stem. and then you just start

pruning

from there, usually, like I said, these suckers come off pretty easily, but if you have some stubborn ones, having a couple of hand pruners helps because you don't want to damage the tomato plant, come in here and strip. those out and as you can see we're actually getting to more than a single stem now so what I want to do I have one more down here let's go so what you want to do is prune this lower foliage this one It's also very important because you'll see here, this thing is starting to curve and has a lot of dirt.

Look at all that dirt, that dirt, dirt. I guess that's the correct term. It has land. That soil has soil borne fungi. Like blight, blight is a fungus that will land on the leaves and colonize the surface of the leaves causing those spots that you see, those yellow spots and eventually it will kill the plant, so what we want to do is remove all of those leaves and Prune the plant, this will ensure that there is plenty of airflow around the base of the plant and will also ensure that soil doesn't splash on the leaves, so we will prune it completely. to the first flower this looks really drastic this looks really drastic but it's important if you want to keep the leaves off the ground so here's our first flower here's the last leaf node coming out and we're good so let's prune about a foot and a half, almost two feet of plant, but we're left with this plant up here that will continue to grow and that will ensure that the plant doesn't touch the ground, has really good air flow and that will keep it going. disease free almost all season and if you are worried about wasting these suckers don't worry they will actually grow all new plants all you have to do is make sure you remove the bottom two leaves stick them in some soil and de In fact, they will root and produce all new plants, so if you want to give some to your friends or sell it at a farmers market, no one will know the difference, just make sure it is rooted properly and you will be fine.

I like to keep it if I'm going to have some on hand. I like to have a small vase of water so they stay nice and cheerful and don't wilt in the sun. I just like to keep them with invasive water so they stay. hydrated and then I will move them to their containers where they can grow and will be ready to root in about five to seven days. They root pretty quickly but in our case we have so many that they're actually going to go in the compost pile okay so now let's talk about

staking

that's the next most important thing because now that we've pruned the tomato it's ready to stake it so these are the fillets we used, these are eight foot furring strips, now it may look nice.

It's crazy to stick an eight-foot-tall pole into the ground next to a two-foot-tall tomato plant, but remember that you're not going to stake this two-foot-tall tomato plant forever; You're going to stand up to eight feet tall. This tomato plant is going to grow. to grow for you all season long, so you need to prepare for that, it's definitely not uncommon for us to have to cover tomato plants because they grow too big. We have had 10 foot tall tomato plants without even trying before and it is absolutely amazing how many tomatoes you get so you want to make sure you have a nice firm base to put them on.

These are 1 inch by 2 inches and are also very inexpensive, which is why I love them. The furring strips are about 1.50 at our local hardware store, so they're not going to cost Yarmouth and a delay, they're really structurally sound. We've used the same furring strips for about three or four years and we're sure the bottoms rot a little, but at the end of the day it's really an expensive option, the way we connect the tomato plant to the strip The leveling is with elastic thread. This elastic thread is made by a company called Cloud City. I'll have links to them in the description box below, but it's by far. the best method for tying your tomato plants as you can find, we love this material, we have been using it for three years and honestly have no reason to use anything else, this material stretches so it is easy to cut , but it also doesn't cut your tomato plant, that's something you don't want if you don't have something that's not elastic, it won't grow with the tomato plant, so it will contract the stem if you contract it.

It will bend it and it can fall over or it can cut off circulation completely and then it can cause the plant to die, so you don't want to do that, but it's also elastic, so it actually moves with the wind when the wind blows. tomato plants, you want the tomato plant to be able to swing, if it swings, nothing will happen if it can't swing, what will happen is that the material is actually going to cut the tomato plant, because if it doesn't swing, that Pressure from the wind is pushing on the stem and will actually start to cut into the stem and end up cutting it, cutting it, or causing it to bend and fall.

You don't want to do that, which is why this is very, very inexpensive and it's very amazing. Keep in mind with your tomato plants, the real intention of these things is as waistband material, but you get 300 yards for like eight to ten bucks, it's really inexpensive stuff and it's really awesome and like I said I'll have a link in the box. description below. Besides this, there are many other things you can use, you can use pantyhose material, you can use elastic tomato tape,but at the end of the day, this video is about what we do and we've been doing this for three years and we just can't.

Find a better way to do it, so like I said, there will be a link in the description box below. You'll thank me later, so now what we're going to do is take the steak and we're just going to stick it into the ground. You guys always ask me, Luke. What do you do to prepare the steak for burying? And the answer is nothing. I literally just bought them at the hardware store right now. I picked them up and they are ready to be buried. I leave them blunt like this. You can cut them at an angle, but I don't like losing length on them, so I keep them blunt like this and push them into the ground.

You guys always ask how they secure them to the ground. just push them in, I don't do anything special, I just push them in and let the weight of the tomato plant basically be the anchor. The tomato plant has a root system that is anchored to the soil, all it needs is support. stay to climb it, so the tomato you would expect the pole to swing all over the place and it really doesn't, and that's because the tomato plant for the most part is pretty strong, it just needs direction to go and This post is straight, it keeps your tomato plant growing straight and since the root system is so established on your tomato plants, it stays pretty much where it is and doesn't move much, so just push it into the ground, eight inches and ten centimeters.

I prefer about 12 inches if I can if the soil is very soft, but if you can't go that far just make sure it's like eight inches and everything will be fine, so we're going to go here to this tomato plant and it's very important how we do this. that you put it on the inside of the tomato plant this is the outside the outside of the bed is on the outside of the tomato plant this makes it much easier to keep it tied up and work if you put the post on the inside of the plant tomato now we don't put the tomato plant so close to the pole that when we push this you risk damaging the roots, you want to make sure that the pole is about four or six inches further than the tomato plant is because you want to make sure that if you're going to cut some roots you want to make sure you only cut some small fibrous roots, you don't want to cut the main root system of the tomato plant because that's going to cause some stress so all we're going to do is glue it down here about four to six inches away from the plant, make sure it's nice and straight in the air and I just put my body weight on it and let it sink into the ground and sometimes you have to push a little bit, but at the end of the day sinks.

If you can stand on a ladder and hit it with a hammer, it will obviously be a lot more. efficient, but at the end of the day this is what we do, so there you go, now that you have the stake in the ground, it's not too far away, it's about eight inches, so it's not that bad, all we're going to do. is tying it up now, so all we're going to do is take our rubber band here, we're going to pull out about 8 10 12 inches or so, it doesn't really matter, just something you have enough to pull the plant up safely without having to stretch it well and forcefully.

Take the tomato plant, stick it along the pole here and remember to place the pole a little further away from the plant so that it is natural for the plant to move. I won't touch the post completely, but once you get about a foot off the ground, the tomato plant should be nice and firm against the post. This will ensure that your plant grows exactly the way you want. I only tie two. knots and we're ready to go cut it again, come up here and I like to make sure I secure it on each foot. I will put a new rope, this is because after a while, if you let the plant go without any support.

It's going to fall off and you don't want to do that so I like to make sure I keep it secured and that's okay. You'll see here how it can really sway in the wind. Here it does not restrict the stem. and voila, at the end of the day this is what your tomato plants should look like: they are growing with a single stem in a snaffle tied with elastic twine two feet apart with a good all-purpose organic fertilizer, here is what to do to making sure our plants are super healthy and producing tomatoes for us all year round.

Now i know you're wondering luke. My tomato plants already look super ragged. I haven't pruned them, they are everywhere. What can I do still try? Try a single stem. Find the main growing stem. Remove all those suckers. Trim them with pruners if necessary, but keep it to a single stem. Prune the lower leaves. You have good air flow. I promise you the results will be so much better than anything you can imagine, not only that but it will taste better too. It has been shown time and time again that tomatoes actually create sugars that they can generate from the sun, so if your tomatoes can access sunlight and are not blocked by all that bushy foliage, your tomatoes will actually be sweeter, that's how you get sweet, tasty tomatoes by having tomatoes that can touch the sun, so by having a really bushy plant it looks beautiful and you might have a few more tomatoes at the end of the year, but you'll have sweeter tomatoes. bigger and sweeter if you grow them this way you will probably also get more tomatoes growing this way because you can fit more plants in a given space so at the end of the day that is why this method is one that we stick with and continue to grow until the today, so I hope you enjoyed, I hope you learned something new if you have any. any other questions or comments post them in the comments box below and if you haven't subscribed yet make sure to do so, that would be a great idea because we have a lot more content to post so okay I'll see you on tomorrow's episode.

I hope you enjoyed, I hope you learned something new, and as always, this is Luke from the Emmy Gardener channel reminding you to grow big or go home, we'll see you all later. See you goodbye.