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Holy Tomato!
How to grow red, juicy tomatoes
by Molly Jones
Unlike its tasteless and anemic grocery store counterpart, a homegrown tomato drips with juice and glows from the summer sun. You can create this prized produce with your own two hands. Here are a few tips to help you grow those perfect tomatoes that you will eagerly await all summer.
1. Plant the seeds
Tomato seeds should be planted in flats or large pots six to eight weeks before the last frost, which usually occurs in March. Make sure the seeds have plenty of sun and water to grow indoors.
2. Get the soil ready
“You need well-drained soil,” says Jeff Gillman, an associate professor in the horticulture department at the University of Minnesota. Purchasing soil that contains organic materials helps to drain the soil. An example of such a material is humus, the leftover material from compost. “Organic materials and compost make the soil healthy,” he says. Rock minerals, such as lime and rock phosphate, should also be added to the soil because they help retain soil moisture and control insects, diseases and weeds.
3. Move your plants outside
When the trees outside are green and leafy and the temperature gets no lower than 55 degrees Fahrenheit, tomatoes can be planted outside. Tomatoes need warmth and at least eight hours of sunshine a day.
4. Give the tomatoes some friends
Plants near the tomatoes, or companion plants, should be unlike tomatoes. “If the plants are similar to the tomatoes, pests can travel from those plants to the tomatoes,” says Gillman. He suggests plants such as corn or mums.
5. Control weeds and pests
“The hoe and hands are the best way to manage weeds,” says Gillman. Crop rotation, or moving the tomatoes every three years to an area where plants of a different family, such as potatoes or peppers, were previously planted, also helps control pests.