growing tomatoes

Photo courtesy of "The Ewan" on Flickr, shared under Creative Commons Licensing

Here are some of my notes from the "how to grow tomatoes" seminar I went to:

• Always water in the morning or before 12 noon.  It discourages insect activity and gives plants what they need for a sunny day. 
• Use liquid kelp every 2 weeks on tomatoes- it helps the tomatoes grow strong.  You can also use the kelp as a foliar spray (maybe even better this way), but you can use it as a drench.  Only use one capful to a gallon of water.
• Fertilizers with the 5-7-3 ratio is just about right for tomatoes. The nursery I went to recommended "Dr. Earth tomato, vegetable, herb organic fertilizer".  The seminar speaker said to use Dr. Earth as a top dressing every 8 weeks once you have planted your plants.  Don't work it into the soil because of the feeder roots.  Best to work it into the soil before you plant or put some in the bottom of the planting hole when you plant.
• Another thing you can do is save your eggshells and put them in a container with water (let them sit for about a week or week and a half).  The calcium from the egg shells will get in the water, and then you can water the tomatoes with the water.  The tomatoes like calcium.
• Tomatoes have feeder roots that run along the soil and tap roots that go deep.  You want your soil to be at least 18 inches deep.
• Until your plants get big enough, it is good to protect them from hard winds.  You can buy things like "harvest guard", or just use some bubble wrap you have around the house to wrap around the tomato plant to protect it until it gets big enough.  I used some bubble wrap.
• Never put plastic over a tomato plant (it will get baked!)
• Always prune "suckers" from the plant.  You can just break the suckers off-they don't need to be cut.    Suckers are the branches on the tomato plant that come off the plant at a less than 90 degree angle.  The main branches that will produce fruit come off the main stem at about 90 degrees.  Cherry tomatoes produce lots of suckers.  No need to prune anything else on a tomato plant, other than suckers.
• Never let your tomato leaves touch the ground.  This is inviting bacteria to come play with your plant.
• Tomatoes need air and don't like overhead watering.  Always water between bottom branches and the dirt.  Dig down in your dirt to see if the tomato is getting enough water.  
• A lot of water, less often is better than a little water, all the time.  Think deep watering.
• In Seattle, when the weather is in the 70's and 80's, it is suggested to water almost every morning.  However, if you have an 80 day plant you might want to cut back on watering in, say, mid-august or so because you want the roots to bring the sugar to the fruit and they don't do that as much if they are getting lots of water.
• And by the way, the "80 days" or "72 days" is the time from when you actually plant the plant in your garden, not when it grows from seed.  So, when buying plants from a nursery, the bigger tomato plants will only probably get you maybe 2 or 3 weeks of a head start, even though the plants are much older than that.  So, save some money, and buy the smaller plant.
• The woman who gave the seminar said that if at the end of the season you still have green tomatoes on your plants, you should cut the whole branch with the tomatoes on it and hang it upside down, inside your house, to ripen. 

Those are the main things I learned.  I hope something here helps you in your garden!