8 July 2009 | BrianRS
Mulching For Tomatoes Helps With Water Retention and Weed Control
By Brian R Stephens
The purpose of mulching is to prevent loss of moisture from the soil, reduce leaching of the fertiliser, suppress weed growth and keep the fruit off the ground helping to ensure that there is less risk of disease and fruit rotting.
Other advantages associated with mulching are that there is less need for cultivation of the soil as weeds fail to come through the mulch layer, same applies to having to apply chemical weed killers. Also when you water there is a reduction in the level of evaporation, the soil consequently retains moisture better and has less tendency to develop a surface crust.
So clearly there are advantages to mulching when growing tomatoes, but one slight disadvantage of using traditional mulching methods for tomatoes is that mulch tends to prevent warming of the soil, which tomatoes like, so it is a good idea to warm the soil before applying the mulch consequently ensuring that the soil conditions tomatoes really like are established.
An alternative to traditional mulching is to use a breathable black plastic membrane mulch, this lets water and air through but prevents weeds growing underneath it along with the other mulching benefits. Use this method and you will have all the normal benefits of mulching plus the added benefit of warm soil for your tomatoes. So this is, in my opinion, the best mulch for tomatoes.
If you still prefer the more traditional methods of mulching plants, then at the end of the growing season, providing there has been no obvious problems with contamination and disease the mulch can be dug into the soil to increase the level of organic matter content in the soil.
The recommended thickness of mulching is between 3″ to 4″ ensuring that the mulch works at its optimum efficiency without preventing the air reaching the roots of the plant. That is unless you are using coffee grounds which have a tendency to cake but are rich in nitrogen. For coffee grounds the recommended thickness is 1″
Mulches on tomatoes that require special care are:
- Bark
- Newspaper
- Sawdust
- Wood chips
All of the above have a high carbon to nitrogen ratio and if used need a nitrogen fertilser application to compromise for this.
Visit Growing Red Tomatoes for more tips and advice on tomato growing in a greenhouse and to get access to expert advice that could double or triple the size of your crop of tomatoes.
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8 July 2009 | BrianRS
When anyone is first starting out to grow tomatoes there are a few common mistakes that are very easy to make. Nearly everyone who has gone through this process will make some errors if they don’t do a little basic research first. To try and ensure that you are not re-inventing the wheel take note of these basic suggestions and make sure you do not get to the end of summer only to find there were some simple steps that could have helped you produce some lovely fresh tomatoes.
Selecting the right variety of plant is probably the first and most obvious thing you need to do, there are 2 basic types of tomatoes (3 if you want to be picky), which are vine or bush tomatoes.
Bush tomatoes stop growing when they reach a certain size and produce their fruit pretty much all at the same time. Vine tomato plants will just keep going and need to be controlled by pruning in order to make sure you produce good quality fruit over an extended period.
Make sure you select a sunny spot for your tomato plants, they will need a minimum of 6 hours and any less will hamper the production and ripening of the fruit.
Make sure the plants receive enough water, but don’t over water. Tomatoes like moist soil conditions and can’t be allowed to dry out. But keep them with persistently drenched feet and they will not be able to get the air from the soil to the roots and they will suffer as a result.
Keep your plants free of pests, whether you take an organic approach or use a pesticide it is essential to make sure that your plants do not get infested.
Disease also needs to be avoided and one of the most common sources for disease is the from the soil, keeping the lower part of the plant away from the soil by pruning or using a mulch barrier will greatly reduce the risk of disease.
Visit Good Tomato Growing for more tips and advice on tomato growing in a greenhouse and to get access to expert advice that could double or triple the size of your crop of tomatoes.
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25 June 2009 | BrianRS
In order to grow good tomatoes that are free from disease, have a good plump juicy body and are plentiful on the vine there are 3 key aspects you need to take care of to get the best from your plants. It involves a little forethought and planning on your part but the results will make it well worth the effort. So exactly what do tomatoes need to grow?
First, as they say about real estate, its location, location, location, tomato plants are true sun worshipers and need to be in the sun for at least 6 hours a day in order to provide plenty of fruit on the vine.
Second, they need to get the correct nutrients to flourish and the place they get them from is the soil helped along by the correct watering program. If you are planting the tomatoes in the garden it is essential that the ground is properly prepared for planting with plenty of compost and or fertiliser dug into the soil to aid growth. Once planted they should be revisited fairly frequently with some sort of feed and I would recommend this is done at least twice a week. You can either purchase specialist tomato feed or you can use your left over ground coffee and place this around the base of the plants. Do this and before you know it you will have lots of lovely fresh tasting tomatoes.
Do not underestimate just how thirsty your tomato plants are, when I mentioned the correct watering program, this means never allowing your plants to dry out, especially important if they are in pots or a grow bag and also try not to shock them with cold water. If you can, store buckets of water next to the plants so that the water reaches ambient temperature then when you need to, transfer the water into a watering can with a rose fitted so that the water can be sprinkled on gently. Ideally you will be watering like this 3 times a day.
If that all sounds a bit labour intensive, you could install a drip feed watering system, there are special systems you can purchase for this task or you could make up your own system. One way is to bury plastic water bottles between the plants that have been pierced around the circumference and through the bottoms, the tops are left above the level of the soil so that they can be re-filled. Its a rough and ready but very effective way of ensuring the soil doesn’t dry out, as long as you remember to top the bottles up of course. Also remember that when you do water there has to be enough for a good deep soak, too little and you will encourage your roots to the surface.
Third is the proper support of the plant, they need to be off the ground and up in the air. Leaving shoots running across the ground will leave them open to fungal attack and disease. A lot of people take care to prune their plants, removing any growth below the flowering fronds. Make sure that you use either a suitable and strong enough stake or you can use tomato cage whichever is your preference and do it while the plants are still young so that the roots are not disturbed at a later time.
This is the best way to grow tomatoes that I know, obviously there are some common sense actions you need to take as well to maintain your plants in a healthy condition, such as removing dead or dried out leaves, but essentially pay attention to these 3 key aspects and you will be well on the way to plenty of juicy fresh tomatoes.
