Growing Tomatoes on a Slope

By Michelle Fabio

If you happen to have a bit of a slope in your gardening space, why not try planting your tomatoes there?

Tony Kienitz, author of The Year I Ate My Yard, says that since tomatoes are “hard-wired” to grow this way, they are naturally quite productive growing on slopes. Also, Kienitz notes, as gravity works to increase sugars, your tomato crop will be even sweeter than usual.

Kienitz, who learned this method from a friend from Colombia where slope tomato-growing is the norm, admits that some of the fruit will rot on the ground, but insists that the bulk of the crop will survive.

Dr. Ron Smith, an extension horticulturist at North Dakota State University, recommends Read the rest of this entry »