By Kira Hamman

Mulch is the cashmere sweater of the garden – cool in warm weather, warm in cool weather, and right for every occasion.

It keeps the soil from drying out too quickly, and it smothers weeds in the bargain. What’s not to love?

Tomatoes adore mulch, of course, since they hate to be chilly or thirsty, and tomato gardeners love it because in addition to all the wonderful properties already mentioned, mulch protects dropped or sagging tomatoes from rotting before they can be harvested.

The only question, then, is “which mulch to use?” Read the rest of this entry »

By Michael Nolan

I have to be honest.

The first time I heard about this idea I choked on my Fanta and ridiculed the messenger.

How crazy does it sound, really? Growing tomatoes in bales of hay?

When I realized that it was in fact true and entirely possible, I swear I could hear the unmistakable strains of that all-too-familiar tune from Deliverance playing in my head. I felt even stranger when I realized that this isn’t anything new.

All it really takes is a line of bales placed in full exposure to the sun.For best use, the bales you use Read the rest of this entry »

By Kira Hamman

A hotly debated topic among tomato gardeners is how to keep those precious spheres off the ground.

Letting plants sprawl along the earth makes them more susceptible to pests and disease, not to mention that it makes harvesting the tomatoes harder.

But while everyone seems to agree that keeping tomato plants upright is the way to go, exactly how to do that is hardly unanimous.

Some people are cagers. They swear by those metal ice cream cone-shaped contraptions that you plunk over the seedlings while they’re Read the rest of this entry »

By Michelle Fabio

We’ve talked about how seaweed can improve your tomato growth, yield, and flavor here, but did you know that simple seawater can also help your tomatoes?

Researchers at the University of Pisa in Italy have found that diluted seawater can not only be used to grow tomatoes but can even produce fruit with higher concentrations of cancer-fighting antioxidants.

Riccardo Izzo and his colleagues in Pisa used cherry tomatoes to determine Read the rest of this entry »

By Kira Hamman

If you live in the northern half of the country, the tomato seedlings you started indoors probably have a bit of cabin fever right about now.

They’ve undoubtedly outgrown the pots you started them in and are reaching for the sky (that is, ceiling) with determination.

Maybe you’ve started to harden them off, and their first brush with outside light and air has left them a bit woozy. They’re not quite ready for independence, but soon, so soon, they will be. You’ll take them out to the garden and – gasp! – leave them there.

We’ve already covered hardening off, and that is indeed a critical step. But once it’s done, there are still some things you can do to ease the transition and improve your plants’ chances of success. Read the rest of this entry »

By Michelle Fabio

One of our readers recently received seeds from Totally Tomatoes and with them came a note: “We don’t recommend using potting mixes with fertilizer for starting seeds.”

The reader is wondering why Totally Tomatoes make this recommendation.

The truth is that seedlings really don’t need fertilizer until they develop their first set of leaves, and indeed, starting with high amounts of fertilizer can actually cause more harm than good to your tomato plants.

Inorganic fertilizers, in particular, have been known to “burn” seedlings as their nutrients can be released too quickly, inhibiting germination.

Also, if you have leggy tomato plants, Read the rest of this entry »