How to Grow Tomatoes: Top Tomato Growing Tips From an Expert

Have you tried growing tomatoes at home with little (or mixed) success? You aren’t alone! That being said, tomatoes are not difficult to grow when you follow the right tips. If you want to know how to grow tomatoes, keep reading to get the top tomato growing tips from an expert.

Tomatoes are arguably the most popular garden crop. They are also often the first vegetable that new gardeners will attempt to grow, dreaming of tomato perfection: juicy but firm, sweet, and free of blemishes.

There is nothing better than sinking your teeth into a sun-warmed, juicy tomato straight from your own garden. Garden tomatoes are so much better than any tomato you can buy in the grocery store, which is why they are so popular as a home garden crop.

Growing tomatoes, however, can be tricky, sometimes with disastrous, frustrating results. So let’s try to prevent that from happening, yes!?

• How to Grow Tomatoes
• Start From Seeds
• Planting Tomatoes
• Watering Your Tomato Plants
• Tomato Growing Tips from an Expert
• Do you start tomatoes from seed or by tomato starts?
• When is the best time to plant tomatoes in the home garden?
• Which varieties should gardeners grow?
• Do all tomatoes need staking? What support should I use?
• How should I fertilize my tomatoes to keep them organic?
• How deep do you plant your tomatoes?
• How do I pinch the suckers off my tomatoes? And why is it important?
• Do you have any more tips for growing the best tomatoes in town?
• About the Expert
• Love Tomatoes? So Do I!

How to Grow Tomatoes

Start From Seeds

If you have the time, start them indoors. A sunny window is all you need, but for the best setup, consider using a grow light and a heat mat. You can start them 6-8 weeks before the last frost.

Use a high-quality seed starting soil mix and dampen the soil before adding it to your seed starting containers. Sow the seeds according to the package, around 1/4 to 1/8 deep. For more seed starting tips, view this guide.

Planting Tomatoes

Tomatoes can be planted outside once the risk of frost has passed completely. They prefer warm temperatures. Choose a location with full sun, at least 6-8 hours of direct sunlight.

Mix in compost to your soil prior to planting, as tomatoes are heavy feeders.

Plant your tomato plants deep. They are one of the few vegetable garden plants that do best when you dig a deep hole and plant them, as it lets your plants develop better root systems (Hint: watch the video further down in the post to see just how deep).

Watering Your Tomato Plants

Use a controlled nozzle to water tomato plants. This enables you to water carefully and avoid getting foliage wet, which will keep the plants healthier.

Tomatoes are very juicy, which means they need a good amount of water as they grow. One of the top mistakes that gardeners make when growing tomatoes is watering infrequently. Missing several days of watering and then trying to make up for it leads to blossom end rot, so water regularly and deeply.

Tomato Growing Tips from an Expert

It’s not that tomatoes are particularly difficult to grow. However, they do need regular attention, as they are prone to disease and pests. Often, a new gardener (and even the seasoned ones!) will plant tomatoes with the best intentions and then forget to check up on the plant.

If this sounds like you, then you will love this! I had the honour of interviewing an organic gardening expert, Joe Lamp’l, who joins us today with a short video where he shares helpful tomato growing secrets so that you can grow the best tomatoes in town!

Joe Lamp’l is the executive producer and host of the award-winning PBS series Growing a Greener World. He has been kind enough to answer my questions and share his wisdom to help us all grow better tomatoes this season.

You’ll find the answers to some of the most frequent tomato questions below. However, be sure to check out his short, helpful video for more detailed answers and see firsthand how Joe successfully grows tomatoes. This video is jam-packed with beneficial tomato-growing tips!

Do you start tomatoes from seed or by tomato starts?

I start tomatoes from seed when I can or when I have the time. I love to do that because it gives me a jump on the gardening season. I get to start gardening in February when I put seeds in the ground, but a lot of times I’m on the road, or I’m busy with a show. In that case, I don’t start from seeds, but I buy seedlings or starter plants as an easier and time-saving route.

When is the best time to plant tomatoes in the home garden?

The best time to plant tomatoes in a home garden is after the risk of frost has passed in the spring. Here in Atlanta, that’s April 15. Tomatoes are very frost-sensitive and don’t like the cold. My goal is six weeks after planting to hopefully have my first tomato.

Which varieties should gardeners grow?

As far as varieties of tomatoes, there are nearly an infinite number of varieties, and a lot of them are being rediscovered today. Those that have been around for hundreds of years are making a resurgence. These are called heirloom varieties.

Heirloom tomatoes have a story. I love the allure of the story and the flavour intensity of them. Sometimes, they’re a little more challenging to grow because they don’t have built-in disease resistance, so you need to be a little more ambitious with taking care of those plants.

You can also buy hybrid varieties, which are modern breeds that have some of that disease resistance built in. For a new gardener, that may be a better choice as it gives you a head start and fewer challenges.

Do all tomatoes need staking? What support should I use?

Tomato varieties are referred to as indeterminate or determinate. Indeterminate varieties are vines, and they keep growing all season. They can’t support themselves without growing along the ground. I love to grow indeterminate varieties and stake them or trellis them. What I call the ultimate tomato cage is basically a livestock panel that I cut to size and form a square around the plant.

If you don’t want to use a stake or a cage, you can use a piece of bamboo, which is super easy.

If you want something simple, you can grow a determinate variety. They don’t grow past a certain height and stay shorter. There are even varieties today that are just happy in a container because they stay really small, and it’s easy to contain their upward growth.

How should I fertilize my tomatoes to keep them organic?

Tomatoes are heavy feeders. They like nitrogen and good ingredients in the soil. As an organic gardener myself, I focus on the health of the soil. When I’m building out my garden beds or my containers, I’m looking for great soil.

I like to use Morganite as an organic fertilizer since it has lots of nitrogen in it. You want to make sure that you water it in properly to distribute the nutrients, and you want to do that gently.

How deep do you plant your tomatoes?

Tomatoes are one of the only plants that you can dig really deep. I’ll use a soil knife to get deep into the hole.

I’ll pull the bottom leaves off the tomato plant up to the last two leaf buds. Most of the plant goes underground because the stem has little fibers that, when they come in contact with soil, develop roots. As a result, I’ll have a much larger root system to take up all those nutrients that I put into the high-quality soil. (Hint: watch the video above for a demonstration of how deep).

How do I pinch the suckers off my tomatoes? And why is it important?

When a tomato grows, there’s an offshoot between the main stem and the leaf called a sucker. A lot of people feel that you need to pull those suckers off with the belief that the suckers are pulling energy away from the plant and the production of tomatoes.

But the fact of the matter is, the suckers actually generate more opportunity to pull in nutrients from the sun.

The true problem with suckers is that it increases the plant’s mass. Each of those suckers creates a new branch, and if you don’t pull them off, you will have a much thicker plant. If it’s all inside a tomato cage, it can get crowded. You want good air circulation.

As a rule of thumb, if you have the time, it’s a good idea to pull off those suckers to create better air flow within the plant. But if you leave them on and you just want to take the easy path, there’s nothing wrong with that. You won’t diminish the value or the volume of the fruit you get just because you left the suckers.

Do you have any more tips for growing the best tomatoes in town?

Stay on top of it. You have to be vigilant in the garden with tomatoes because they’re tricky to grow all the way through harvest. They are very susceptible to pests and diseases, even those with disease resistance bred into them. Every morning, I inspect my plants. If I see spotting or discolouration, I remove those leaves and get them out of the garden so they don’t spread to the rest of the plant.

Thank you so much for your time and helpful tips, Joe!

If you have ever wanted to grow tomatoes or had trouble successfully growing tomatoes in the past, I hope Joe’s tomato growing tips helped to answer your questions about how to grow tomatoes and enjoy a large yield of delicious, garden-fresh fruit this summer!

About the Expert

Joe Lamp’l’s (aka joe gardener®) infatuation with gardening and nature began as a child. As one of the country’s most recognized and trusted personalities in gardening and sustainability, that passion for living a greener life is evident to a nationwide audience who watches Joe in his current role as Executive Producer and Host of the award-winning PBS series, Growing a Greener World®, and previously as host of Fresh from the Garden on DIY Network and GardenSMART.

Joe also shares his know-how on NBC’s TODAY SHOW, ABC’s Good Morning America, The Weather Channel, and through his popular books, podcast series, nationally syndicated newspaper column, and more.

Love Tomatoes? So Do I!

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