Tomato Plants from Seedshow to grow tomato plants from seeds

It was around about the beginning or spring, April if I remember correctly in 2003.

I was staring at my garden and wondering what I could do. I would have to admit I’d been rather busy and my garden was looking rather pitiful. The grass needed mowed badly, the plants needed cut back and to put it bluntly it was in need of a serious makeover.

My son came up behind me and asked me to pick him up so he could see out of the window also, being 3 at the time it was far out of his reach. So up he went and sitting on my hip he looked out at the bomb site I called a garden. “mummy,” he said pointing at something in the garden. “yes babes,” I replied. “Mommy, I think the grass needs a hair cut. Can we get the scissors and give the grass a hair cut like mine?” I couldn’t help myself I just bust into fits of giggles. All I could do was hug him and tell him I love him in between laughing.

A few days later we were in the garden giving the lawn a hair cut as my son says, when I decided we should have a little plot were we can grow vegetables. So we were digging away at the soil, me with my spade and my son with his plastic spade he got with his gardening toys. When he decided the best way to dig the soil was to pick it up with his hands, eat a bit of it and then spit it back out again. My son was my shadow and since I working in the garden I could expect to see a lot more of his ingenious alternative ways of gardening.

So came the time to plant the seeds. He watched me as I drew a line in the soil and sprinkled the seeds into it. I had fenced of a corner of the plot so my son could have his own little plot to work with. I stood up for a minute so I could have a drink and cool down a bit as it was getting hot. He ran over and picked up a stick and ran back to his own bit of the plot, there he proceeded to make a line in the soil. He pressed the stick into the soil and tried to pull it along, however the stick kept sinking into the soil because he was pressing to hard, he fell over on his bottom. He did this over and over until he got annoyed with falling and threw the stick across the garden in a fit of temper. So he decided that didn’t work so he would just sow the seeds. He picked up a big handful of tomato seeds and threw them on the soil, then he rubbed his hands over them like he was trying to cover them with soil.

After this everyday we went into the garden and watered our seeds. He wanted to water his own so we used watering cans. as we walked down the garden path you could hear the water in his watering can slosh all over the place, by the time we got to the end of the garden he only had a tiny amount of water in his watering can. So he decided to take my watering can off of me n drown his seeds in water. I asked him why he used so much water and his answer was, “so my seeds can go swimming silly.”

Needless to say when they grew my sons first gardening experience was a disaster, but that didn’t matter to him as he claimed mine as his master piece. One day we went out to water the slowly ripening tomatoes when i noticed some of them had been eaten, I told my son that some insect had been eating them so we have to stop them or we wont have any left. Well a few days later I noticed there was a big bite out of one of the tomatoes, i looked at my son. Very innocently he looked at me and smiled and said, “it wasn’t me mummy it was the insects,” with tomato pips running down his chin.

• ISBN13: 9781580170277
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Product Description
This classic has now taught generations of gardeners how to use the natural benefits of plants to protect and support each other. Here is a reader’s complete reference to which plants nourish the soil, which keep away bugs and pests, and which plants just don’t get along. Here is a complete guide to using companion planting to grow a better garden. 555,000 copies in print.Amazon.com Review
This gardening classic was first published in 1975, and now a seco… More >>

Carrots Love Tomatoes: Secrets of Companion Planting for Successful Gardening

So you love that red vegetable that is actually a fruit, do you? When you spy a plump, glistening specimen it just calls you to slice it and have a BLT. I know how it is! I grow tomato plants during the summer so I can munch on BLT’s every weekend. So here are some tips for making sure your tomato plants are nice and productive.

*Get them in the ground early. If you do box gardening, this is even easier, as you can control the environment around and the soil in the box easier. Basically, you want to get your tomatoes planted when you can work the soil and you are pretty sure maybe only one more frost is on its way. Also, plant starts, not seeds. Waiting for those seeds to germinate takes longer and the fruitful season will be shorter.

The thing is, the sooner you get tomato plants in the ground, the sooner you will get fruit! If you can have fruit ripening early on in the growing season, you can have fruit coming for a longer period of time. Now on to the next tip!

*Fertilize the soil. When you are getting your spaces ready for your tomato plants, be sure to fertilize that soil well, and naturally. These days my family has a neat composting system, but back in our less organized days I found that steer manure mixed into the top four to six inches of soil would help yield tons of tomatoes. So I say again, get that soil fertilized naturally and then plant your tomatoes. One important thing here is to not put too much steer manure in there. Really you only need about two inches of the stuff spread over the ground, then you mix it in. If you use too much, it might burn the roots of your plants.

*Fertilize again. You want to fertilize at least one more time during the growing season. Keeping your soil naturally full of excellent nutrients will keep your tomato plants healthy and abundant. During the season, I like to use some water soluble fertilizer to feed my plants, and this stuff is not hard to find.

*Take care in where you plant. If you plant your tomato plants in the same soil you planted the year before, they will usually be sickly and not yield as much. This is because tomato plant roots leave a fungus in the ground that does not disappear for at least a year. So maybe have two or three spots that you can rotate your tomato plants to each year.

*Harvest on time and regularly. It is true of jalapeno plants, it is true of bell pepper plants and pea plants as well. If you harvest when things are ripe and take care to not damage the plant when you do so, more fruit will come.

*Carefully and wisely prune. Don’t go into this task blindly. Be sure to get advice from your extension office and perhaps from a local nursery. If you prune badly, you will actually reduce the number of tomatoes that you get. The truth is, I have never bothered with this, because the above tips always have yielded enough tomatoes for my family to can about 20 quarts of tomatoes each year.

So good luck and enjoy your BLT’s!

Growing up, we were lucky to have a great garden full of juicy, large tomatoes. Late summer and early fall at our house always brought the addition of fresh, mouth-watering tomatoes to our dinner table. My mom would can these at home to use throughout the year, even though I didn’t exactly relish eating them. While I really don’t like stewed tomatoes, I’m always up for eating a good tomato that is fresh. If you love fresh tomatoes, you don’t have to deprive yourself because growing tomatoes is quite easy!

When starting your tomato plants, you can either choose to use the starter plants most people enjoy, or you could begin growing good tomatoes early inside your home. If you want to do it this way, you can, although this method is much harder and the starter plants that are available make the process much easier. Just remember that you need to wait until they reach a certain size before planting them outside, if you want them to grow correctly. It’s easy to transplant them, but make sure that they have plenty of space between plants. All of the plants will take up more room as they get bigger, and they’ll need to expand to capture more light.
It’s nice but not necessary to have a big garden for growing large tomatoes; a window box works just fine for that purpose. You won’t be able to plant as many plants, but even 1 plant can produce a lot of tomatoes. Growing good tomatoes requires your watchful care. Prevent your tomato plant from breaking by staking it up when it begins to lean to the side. Your options for holding up your tomato plants are to either purchase a special wire frame for tomato plants or just sticking a stake in the ground next to your plants. This will keep fruit from touching the ground. This way, tomatoes stay up off the ground where they belong.
Healthy plants and growing large tomatoes are two benefits of using a good fertilizer on your garden. Just like many other varieties of plants in your garden, keep tomato plants weeded and watered. Since tomatoes ripen after picking, it’s perfectly fine to pick them before they are red and fully ripe. A tomato that is still yellow or orange will continue to ripen after being picked. For the best taste, store the tomatoes in a cool, dry place but avoid refridgeration. Holding some unripe green tomatoes in paper bags in the cellar will effectively extend your tomato season. They will keep well for a few months like this, allowing you to remove them and place them on the windowsill to ripen long into the autumn season.