Grow Lots of Tomatoes... Not Leaves // Complete Growing Guide

Based on a random survey, I discovered online that

tomatoes

are the most popular vegetable

grow

n in the garden, but many times you end up with huge plants,

lots

of

leaves

, and few

tomatoes

. In this video, I'll show you how to Plant Plum Steak Water and Fertilize, plus go over some common pests and diseases that really attack your tomato plants. Also, if you stick around until the end, I have an extra tip for you, something that will increase the fruit. in your plants increase the quality of the fruit, increase the plant's resistance to disease and actually increase the nutritional value of the fruit, but only if you stay until the end, all of that will depend on what is going on, Guys, welcome back to another video, I'm Brian. and if this is your first time here and you're looking to learn how to

grow

your own organic fruits and vegetables easily and cheaply, start now by clicking the subscribe button and the bell icon to receive future notifications of all my videos. to the first topic and that is to plant our transplants.

I already made a video on how to plant tomatoes from seeds. I'll link it below, so once we have our seedlings up and hardened off, if they were grown outdoors, what's next to get them? To get off to a good start, the first thing you have to figure out is where you are going to plant them. First, they need a location that is in full sun. The more the better, we are filming eight hours a day. Not now. It doesn't have to be eight consecutive hours. Mine has a break in the middle of the day and the sun returns in the afternoon.

The soil should be well-drained and slightly acidic, but they are not really temperamental with that and I ended up with a lot. of organic material, so once you have chosen the location, the next step is to plant the tomato and this is one of the transplants that I have, that I grew from seeds. Now one thing about tomatoes and they are one of the only vegetables. You can get away with planting them deep, very deep, as deep as possible, so once they're this size, the reason is if you take a look at this tomato you'll see little hairs all over the path.

Up and down the stem, each of those hairs is waiting to come into contact with the soil and when it does it will take root, so the more stem we can have underground, the more root system we will have. We are going to climb the tomato plant, which in turn will be a healthier plant with more fruits, so what we would do is remove all the lower

leaves

as high as we can. I'm just going to maybe leave that out. You could probably do more than that, but that will give us an extra six inches of root system.

From the beginning, I had seedlings that were much smaller than these, but I had to go on a trip and I wanted to have them in the ground before I left, so I buried them or planted them in trenches so that as the plant grew it could fill to cover more stem, so I did it the other way around but ended up with the same thing. The results are a larger root system planted deeply now, no matter what time or moment you plant them, you want to use rock phosphate. Rock phosphate will help create a better root system, almost like magic, this works very well, so when planting deep you don't.

Mix this into the soil, you actually want to take a handful at the bottom of the hole and place the plant roots and everything on top so that as soon as the plants start to develop their roots they come into contact with that rock. Phosphate gets it into your system and it really starts to take off. The next thing we want to talk about is spacing now. If you are not going to prune your plants, they need a good two to three feet of space between them if you are going to prune them. I'm going to prune your plants into cordons like I do, they need between 12 and 18 inches of space so you can get away with a lot more plants in a smaller space by doing the cordon method which I'm going to show you because that's how I grow all the mine, which brings us to pruning and to understand why we can we need to understand how a tomato grows naturally or how it wants to grow anyway.

Tomatoes are not plants like peppers, which pretty much establish themselves when they are established, they are a tall upright plant, you may need to gamble if there is a lot of fruit hanging on it or if it is windy, but for the most part it does well on its own keeping the fruit off the ground. the exact opposite of a tomato, the main goal of a tomato is to spread its seeds as far as it can and what it does and that goes back to rooting along the stem because what it does is it just falls and grows. along the ground like a vine and every time the stem touches the ground it will take root so it can grow more and if it is allowed to grow you know it naturally and maybe it is an indeterminate type.

You could get a 10 foot wide plant. And maybe now is a good time to talk about indeterminate versus determinant. A determinant plant is actually like a scent where it is genetically wired to grow to a specific size, produces all of its fruits and then becomes an indeterminate plant and if you are

growing

. Most tomatoes, especially heirlooms, will be indeterminate, meaning they continue to grow and grow and grow until cold weather comes and kills them, so if you have a long

growing

season like mine, that plant It could grow and produce fruit well into the fall. and maybe during the winter, depending on how warm the winters are, so they will obviously need a lot more support.

Now an indeterminate tomato has side branches growing from the side and will produce fruit, but not as much as the main one. stem, so we usually prune them, at least that's how I do it. Steak tomatoes, on the other hand, are something of a mix between the two, still growing as an indeterminate, but their side shoots are shorter and they usually have a good number of flowers. them so you really just want to prune a bee fillet tomato just to keep it under control now if you live in a humid summer climate pruning is essential because the more leaves there are around that plant the more insulated it will be and the greater the possibility of diseases.

To begin with, because there is less air flow, so it is advisable to keep it very well pruned. So how do we do that? What do we remove? What do we leave? It's actually pretty easy if you take a look at this plant right here, you can see the main ones. The stem goes straight from the ground to the top and then as the leaves come out it creates these little intersections or axils where you will start to see the growth. Now, if those little side sprouts are left unchecked, they will continue. grow and grow and take energy from the rest of the plant where you really want the energy to go into fruit production, not the leaves, so what you want to do is as soon as you see them pinch them, the flowers will start to sprout.

They grow in a different location, they will not grow from the armpits, so you don't have to worry about removing the flowers when you pinch the armpits, the flowers actually grow on their own stem directly from the main stem and begin to produce small buds. immediately, so you'll see the flowers versus the leaves. They look different now, while we're talking about pruning and while we're talking about flowers, this is optional, but I like to give my plant the best start possible. and really make it focus on its roots and for the first bunch of flowers to come out, I remove them as well again to keep that energy in the roots instead of starting to bear fruit, the rest of the flowers then I'll go away. and you will already have a good root system to support them, no matter what type of tomato you are growing, indeterminate or beefsteak, they will need support now, determinants only grow maybe three four feet tall, etc.

They won't need as much support as one that could grow 10 feet tall; in fact the basic tomato cages you can get at the garden center will be fine for a determinate plant, now for an indeterminate plant like I said. which can grow 10 feet or more depending on the length of the growing season, it will need a good amount of support. Now they sell towers that you can get that are actually like a tomato cage, but really tall, you can use those too, you know? sticks or poles, bamboo poles work well, even if you have a strong enough pole you can grow the main stem up to a cane or pole and just tie it up as it grows, it's fine if you are growing some tomatoes, but I'm I've been farming for about 40 years and needed to find a way that wasn't too expensive and could support a lot of tomatoes, so several years ago I came up with a raised wooden structure with twine running down to each plant, so I have a structure here that I built and they are basically two-by-three posts that hold up an arbor-like top that will serve as a place to tie the twine that will grow from the ground.

Even the top will grow along its own thread, whatever you have that's strong enough to work all season long, but to anchor it to the top, obviously, it's easy, you tie it to the bottom if you plant the tomatoes. and make the rope at the same time, you can plant the tomato on top of the rope and that will anchor that rope to the ground. Now I didn't make my plants not big enough at the time so I had to make a secondary system and basically what I use are landscape staples and I don't really use landscape staples because I found a way to make my own that It's actually half the price.

All you have to do is find a roll of wire at Home Depot. which is the same thickness as the landscape staple, cut an 8- to 12-inch piece, fold it in half, and straighten it. I also use them for my drip lines and like I said, they are half the price of the landscape staple you are using. to push that landscape staple into the ground on either side of the stem at an angle and you're going to leave a little loop there to anchor the string coming down from the top, tie the string and then push that wire down. in the ground, you're going to twist that twine a couple of loops around the main stem just to strengthen it and then you're going to take it up to whatever support you're using at the top, cut it to size and then tie it off. then

complete

this process until you have them all finished and can hold many tomatoes this way for about twenty dollars until this year.

I didn't use anything to tie the stems to the rope. In fact, I just twisted the stem as it grew around the twine, which is fine, but you have to be very careful because inevitably, each year, two or three of them would be accidentally cut off and that would stunt or ruin the plant, so my wife was searching online and found these. The little ones from Amazon are just rings that have little teeth on the curve that grip onto the thread and when they do, they close around the stem allowing room to grow and keeping them securely in place, plus they are reusable So far, I'm very happy with them and I hope that throughout the season they do what I need them to do and I'll let you know because they were very economical for around 200.

Now that brings Let's move on to number four, which is now watering the tomatoes like constantly moist and uniform soil, not waterlogged but uniformly moist. You also want to water the tomatoes from the ground again. Tomato leaves are very weak when it comes to pests and diseases, so any water that comes into contact with them. leaves and debris there will be a breeding ground for disease so if you can use a drip system which I use now that's the best way to do it, it keeps it, keeps the soil evenly moist, keeps water off the leaves , that's exactly what you need if your tomato plant goes from desert drought to fruit flooding, most likely what will happen: the tomato fruit expands and grows drawing water from the rest of the plant if they have been without water for a while.

The fruit may have become a little dehydrated and will absorb as much water as it can at the next watering time, more than its skin can handle and it's like you gain a lot of weight very quickly or if you're a teenager and you grow two inches very You will quickly get stretch marks, so it is more or less the same, except that in tomatoes those stretch marks open and that does not mean that the tomato is inedible, but you must eliminate all those cracks before eating because they can harbor mold and that sort of thing, so if you don't have a drip system, you should water very deeply every few days to encourage the roots to go deeper where they can get a steady supply of water.

Also mulch your plants, which will help them Keep moist and will hold any type of water. If it rains in the summer, which doesn't happen to us, but most likely does, it will splash on the plant and the pathogens will live on it. your soil and if they splash from the soil onto the leaves, it will start the disease process, so if you mulch it, you keep the moisture in and you keep the soil pathogens covered. Number five is fertilizing, now tomatoes need a lot of nitrogen to grow. At first, to start the plant process,I don't really fertilize my tomatoes with nitrogen.

I find that any type of organic fertilizer I put in the soil at planting time will be more than enough nitrogen for the plant to grow. Healthy start, phosphate rock is a good source of phosphate for roots, flowers and fruits, so it will start well after the first month. I use a tomato food. Most tomato fertilizers have a medium-high number, which is. phosphorus for the roots, flowers and fruit and they also have minerals such as calcium, which is very important to prevent flowering and rot, which leads to diseases. Have you ever had tomatoes that are starting to ripen and suddenly notice that the bottom of the fruit looks like this, blooming and rotting? and it is caused by a couple of things, the first thing that is actually rarer is a lack of calcium in the soil, usually the problem is the inability of the plant to get the calcium from the soil to the plant and that is usually caused due to lack of water or inconsistent watering, so a basic tomato fertilizer will ensure that calcium is in the soil and consistent watering will ensure that calcium can move from the soil to the plant; on the other hand, blight is due to too much moisture on the leaves, which we already talked about, it keeps the leaves dry and you shouldn't have any problems now, blight and flower rot are practically irreversible once you have them , so you should prevent them by following the steps we have talked about. now there are two more diseases that can be prevented but can also be taken care of once the plant has them and that is rust and mold now rust and mold start the same way with wet leaves and generally the leaves that are going to be The first affected are the lower leaves of the plant.

It is very easy to care for because all you have to do is remove those leaves. There is much more green growth on top to help produce food for the plant. In fact, in mid-June in my garden, most of the tomato plants are missing the bottom two feet of leaves, that's how it goes, no big deal, I think it looks totally fine and it doesn't really matter the appearance, as long as you have a healthy plant that is In the end I will give you what you want, if the majority of the plant is affected and it is not just the bottom few leaves then you will need to take some additional measures and for me that is neem oil, it's organic and it's one of the two sprays that I use in the garden and that leads us to the next spray that I use, which also leads us to the next point, which is pests, specifically tomato worms.

I'm sure you've all seen these scary things that can decimate an entire plant in a day or two, so be on the lookout. The first signs you will see will be peeling leaves and small black droppings. The first step to getting rid of them is quite easy. Just go out and remove them. There is rarely a horde of tomato worms, usually they are a few fat and greedy ones, the only problem with eliminating them is that they are very difficult to find, they blend very well with the leaves of the tomato, however, there is a technology that really great for that at night. they are easy targets if you have a black light flashlight easy if birds are a problem there are a couple of things you can try usually the bird is not there because it likes the taste of tomatoes, they are there to get the water out of the tomatoes, so If you can put a birdbath, pond or fountain nearby, that will usually keep them away from the tomatoes.

If that doesn't work, you can use bird netting to cover the plant once the fruits begin to ripen. My biggest pest. The problem has been the rats, they are the nightmare of my existence in the garden. I tried everything last year, it was the first year I was able to successfully defend against them and that's basically because I had traps at the base of all my plants. not every plant, but every bed had a couple of traps ready and set all the time and I caught a lot of them and I don't know if I had tomatoes taken last year, I might have had one and that's when we were going on vacation. and I just couldn't change the traps, so the traps worked great for me.

One thing you don't want to use is poison for many reasons, but basically you know that rats are at the bottom of the food chain and there are a lot of things that eat rats and get sick and die from just eating that poisoned rat. Another thing about rats is that you don't know when they are going to die and if they get to your garage or somewhere where you can't get to them, you will have a smelly problem for quite a while until you can find them. Something about poisons though, especially if you have pets, our pets can find those rats without us knowing and then it's too late so stay away from poisons, there are plenty of other options to use so now is the time of the bonus, but to get that bonus you must subscribe and press the bell icon.

Just kidding, unfortunately it doesn't work that way, but um. Subscribe Anyway, you probably have something in your medicine cabinet right now that will do four amazing things for your tomato plants. Look at this. This will help your plants become more resistant to disease. It will produce more fruit. It will make the fruit taste better and actually increase. the nutrient content in the fruit it produces, that ingredient is aspirin, when tomatoes are under attack by pests and diseases, they produce a hormone similar to the salicylic acid in aspirin, this hormone activates the immune system of the plant so that speed up, so by spraying a solution of 600 milligrams of uncoated aspirin in a gallon of water, you are tricking the plant into thinking it is under attack, causing its immune system to rev up before there is any present disease, making it much more difficult for the disease to establish itself.

First, here are eight tips for producing a great crop of tomatoes this year. If you have any tips you want to share or questions you want to ask, leave them in the comments below and remember to subscribe. Press the bell icon and give us the thumbs up. I would really appreciate it and I'll see you in the next video.