Growing Tomatoes: Are You Getting a Great Harvest from Your Tomato Plants?

It's fun growing tomatoes, but have you ever wondered if there are ways to make your tomato plants grow bigger and produce more tomatoes? Yes, there definitely are techniques to use on your tomato plants (beyond providing plenty of water and sunlight) to help them produce a great harvest. Below is a list of relatively simple tips to improve on last year's harvest and give you plenty of fresh tomatoes for your eating pleasure.

Fertilizing Tomato Plants
Everyone knows that to get decent fruit on a tomato plant, fertilizer is needed. But, did you know that there are different formulations of fertilizer? Most of us tend to just pick up the first bag we find on sale, and often times that's a fertilizer that contains an equal ratio of the elements nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K). That formulation is fine to use when you put your tomato transplants in the ground, but once they've gotten over the shock of transplanting and are starting to get strong growth, you'll want to switch to a fertilizer that contains a higher percentage of phosphorus. Why? Because phosphorus not only stimulates root and plant growth but it also encourages blooming. Oh yes, it gives a "kick" to those little blossoms that eventually turn into tomatoes. The fertilizer for this purpose should be at least a 15-30-15 formulation, which means it has 15% nitrogen, 30% phosphorus, and 15% potassium. You can go even higher on the phosphorus in the formulation, but don't go much higher on the nitrogen and potassium. It may not matter as much which brand you use, as it does that you fertilize on a regular basis.

Pruning Tomato Plants
Most tomato plants are indeterminate, which means the vines will continue to grow (as long as they're getting water and sunlight) until the frost kills them. That also means that if you aren't careful, you can have a lot of green, leafy growth on your plants, while not having many tomatoes. One of the best things you can do to prevent this is to prune out those small, new growths (suckers) that occur in the axils - the junctions between the tomato plant's leaves and the main stem. The idea with pruning is to cut back on green growth so that the sugars the plant manufactures go into fruit, rather than into a plant the size of Jack's beanstalk. There's an excellent article on pruning tomato plants at FineGardening.com, and the site includes a photo that clearly shows how to prune out suckers. If you're like some of us and your high school biology classes took place so long ago that you don't remember what an axil is, the photos there are a big help.

Hand Pollinating Tomato Plants
This is a little trick that's used when tomatoes are grown in greenhouses, where there is very little wind to help with pollination. If you have a garden the size of a city block, hand pollination might be a bit tedious and time consuming, but for most backyard gardens, it's easy to accomplish. First, though, it helps to understand about the "birds and the bees" of a tomato plant. Tomato plants are considered to be self-pollinating and they have both male and female flowers on the same plant. Because of that, all that's needed is movement for the pollen to spread. Sometimes bumblebees are used in greenhouses to supply movement, but you can vibrate the flowers yourself by tapping them. Don't flick the flowers so hard they sail into the neighbor's yard; just light taps will do it. Or, if you want to be even more certain that you've accomplished pollination, take a small, dry, artist's paint brush and lightly brush each flower with it. Do this every 2-3 days during the growing season and you'll find that hand pollinating can sometimes double or triple the tomato harvest.

So ... there you have it, easy ways to manage your tomato plants and to increase production. Just follow those three handy tips and you'll have fun growing tomatoes and will enjoy fresh ones to your heart's content!

Sources:
FineGardening.com. http://www.finegardening.com/how-to/articles/pruning-tomatoes.aspx
GardenGuides.com. http://www.gardenguides.com/78575-pollinate-hydroponic-tomatoes.html
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