digitalBush

Farmer might be a little exaggeration.  Maybe I'm more like a tomato growing hobbyist.  Either way, all of us "farmers" have our secret techniques to churn out bigger and more bad ass crops.  I want my tomatoes to be bigger and ripen earlier.  Hey, what can I say?  I dig competition. 

I think it's awesome for people to diversify their activities.  It's important to maintain a well-rounded personality.  Technology is cool and all, but nature is cool as shit too.  If you give a plant a little bit of love it will grow and flourish.   So, do you want to know how to grow big bountiful crops of tomatoes?  I'll give you my secrets.  Maybe you can step away from the computer and go rock some salsa.

Photo courtesy of Manjith Kainickara

1. Prepare your plating area.  I have a good sized garden and every year I till it as deep as I can.  In my neck of the woods, we have mostly clay soil.  I till in peat moss and compost to try and keep the soil from wanting to pack down.  After several year of doing this, my garden soil has become much looser.
2. Pick plant varieties that grow well in your area.  This will depend on climate and soil type.  Your local nursery will be able to help you here.  You will have a ton of choices.  Heirlooms or hybrids, big or small, determinate of indeterminate.  It's all your choice.   I grow early girls, better boys, and big boys.  Try to pick a variety so that you can spread out your harvest. 
3. Dig a hole.  You'll need to dig holes that will cover up roughly 2/3rds of the transplants.  I pick off the lower leaves making sure to leave at least the 2 top sets.  This will help the plant establish a strong root system capable of sucking up water when things start to dry out in the summer.
4. Feed the plants.  I make sure to put some Osmocote slow release fertilizer in the planting hole before I put my plant in.  Additionally, I will fertilize a few times with a water soluble fertilizer depending on how the plant is looking.  You need to be careful with the fertilizer though because too much will make your plant grow big but not produce much fruit.
5. Keep things trimmed.  As the plant grows, I will remove the lower branches.  By the end of the year I have about a 6" to 1' stalk with no branches or leaves.  This will help keep the lower leaves from touching the ground and keep dirt from splashing up onto the leaves.  By keeping the leaves off the ground, you'll reduce the risk of the plant getting diseases, bugs, etc that might be in your soil.
6. WATER!  I've read that fully grown tomato plants need a gallon of water per day.  They are thirsty, that's for sure.  This is especially important during the hottest part of summer.
7. Reap what you sow.  Pick your tomatoes when they are ripe but not too ripe.  If they stay on the vine too long critters will eat them.  If you pick one too early, you can put it in a cardboard box covered up for a few days and it will ripen.
8. Holy Crap!  I have a metric crap ton of tomatoes.  What do I do now?  We can our tomatoes to use in stews and chili later on in the winter.  Homemade canned tomatoes always taste better than the store bought canned ones.

Now, what are you waiting for?  Go get outside and start doing something.  Right after your frosts are over for your area is the time to plant tomatoes.  Hopefully you'll love growing stuff in your garden as much as I do.