To enhance taste, promote growth, increase harvest and keep insects away, consider growing tomato companion plants at the same time. For example, planting basil within 18 inches of your tomatoes will make the fruit taste better while resisting many pests. Carrots can increase tomato production, because tomatoes will get nutrients from carrots (of course, carrots may grow and get smaller). Basil is also an excellent condiment for tomato dishes, try adding it to pasta sauces or on toast.
When planting in the ground, you can get a large coffee pot (open at both ends) to cover the seedlings and press the cafe halfway into the soil. When watering, pour water to the top of the tank and the water will soak directly into the roots, allowing the seedlings to thrive. Be careful to check for small forks drilled where the main stem meets the branch stem. It is said that these little forks do not produce fruit, which is not true, but they do consume some nutrients. In general, leaving the forks will produce more fruit, but they are small, and pinching them will result in larger fruit, but fewer in number (because there are fewer branches).
Before planting seedlings in tomato pots, spread a few handfuls of organic fertilizer to the bottom of the pit. As the roots grow deeper, they gain access to this layer of nutrients in time to increase fruit yield.
If the stem or root of the plant is damaged – if your child sits down on your 18 inches-tall tomato stem and breaks it – you can actually save the tomato by removing the stems and lower branches are buried in the soil, just like when you first transplanted the seedlings with 75% of the seedlings in the soil. Both the hairs and branches on the stalk will continue to grow roots. Since this tomato is already planted in soil, you just need to mound up from the bottom of the stalk, and the tomato will end up looking like a small mound. This piling method is beneficial to tomatoes at all times, as tomatoes are particularly susceptible to fungal infections if their outer branches and leaves hang down to the soil.
The pH value of the soil suitable for tomato survival should be in the range of 6.0-6.8. Lack of calcium or too much acid in the soil can cause stalk rot.
How to solve the problem of calcium deficiency. Take 4 liters of water, add a spoonful of lemon juice (15ml) to boil, then add six spoons of bone meal, stir well, cover the pot and cook for 30 minutes to help the bone meal dissolve, cool down. It doesn’t matter if the bone meal doesn’t dissolve completely. Pour one liter of bone meal solution over the leaves and roots of each tomato plant and repeat after 3-5 days. This is done because bone meal contains a lot of calcium and phosphorus.
Branches that have been pinched off can also easily take root in moist soil to produce new tomato plants. However, to do this first, the branches need to be large enough, and secondly, the climate needs to be suitable. The season suitable for tomato growth should not be too short, otherwise the growing season will end soon when the plant is mature, and there will be no time to produce fruit.
You can put some eggshells at the bottom of the pit before transplanting the tomato seedlings.
If you want to start growing tomatoes early when it’s not too warm at the beginning of the year, you can build a makeshift greenhouse. Manufacture or purchase cylindrical tomato cages made of heavy duty fencing material using vinyl-coated welding wire to form a 3*5 inch deep. Then get some sturdy, clear plastic rods (available at flower and grass markers) and tie them to he cage for reinforcement. Keep the environment moist and warm. Remove the plastic rods when the tomatoes are high enough to stick out of the cage roof or start to bear fruit, whichever happens first.
If you decide you want to prune your “unshaped” tomatoes (those don’t grow like bushes), consider not pruning off the branches, but allowing them to continue to grow untill they have leaves, then pruning the tips off. This stops the branches from consuming nutrients and growing too long, while allowing the first few leaves to increase the plant’s surface area for photosynthesis.
You know you shouldn’t pour coffee into the soil to avoid acidifying the soil, but caffeine can actually kill pests like slugs, too. That’s why coffee trees don’t grow bugs. To effectively kill pests, simply spray the leaves with coffee. An even more effective way to kill these pests is to simply spray the leaves of the plants with coffee. On the leaves, the caffeine isn’t so concentrated that it hurts the plant, but it’s still enough to repel some pests.
If you keep fish, water your tomatoes with the fish water you’ve replaced. Free amine groups (NH3) in water can be directly absorbed by tomato plants, which is very beneficial to plant growth. You can adjust the pH of the water by adjusting the fish food or whatever else is added to the fish water to ensure there is a decent amount of phosphorus, potassium, calcium (from limestone, sea shells, etc.).
If the temperature is regularly above 35 degrees Celsius, consider shading the top of each plant between 11:00 and 3:00 p.m. every day to prevent the heat and sunlight from “burning” the plants.
Buying organic plants from your local farmers market ensures that the plants are not contaminated with pesticides or other harmful chemicals.
Use manure as fertilizer. If you have access to well-fermented manure, you can make this fertilizer yourself. Wrap the manure in pantyhose or gauze, then put the bag in a large bucket, add 19 liters of water, soak it for a few days, and then add twice as much water to dilute it. Use this to water the plants. Tomatoes must love this “drink”! If you live by the sea, the same effect can be achieved by using seaweed ash. Seaweed ash is a good fertilizer, just spray them directly on the leaves, because the trace elements and hormones contained in seaweed ash are more easily absorbed through the tomato leaves, rather than indirectly through the roots.
Don’t water too much.
After tomatoes have been in the ground for six weeks, using tomato cages or stakes can make it easier for tomatoes to bear fruit.
It’s best not to cage or tie tomatoes to stakes at the time of planting, adding cages or stakes later to ensure they don’t damage young roots.
The water from fish farming is a great fertilizer for tomato seedlings.