Your best tomato garden (growing, fertilizer, manure, vines)

[NYCtotheATL]

We just bought a house and will be moving in this coming weekend. The yard is perfect for a garden and I started some seedlings 3 weeks ago to plant in the ground when we move in. They're all about 6" tall at this point and are currently being hardened off. I'll have ten tomato plants to transplant but I've only grown plants in pots due to a lack of space so this will be my first true garden.

My question to all of you is this: how should I set up my tomato garden? Stakes, cages, some kind of wooden frame above with strings tied to hold plants up, etc.

Also, any tips on how to prepare the garden soil: compost, fertilizer, manure, whatever, would be great.

Any ideas, thoughts, even pictures to help this inexperienced garderner would be great.

Thanks!

[bigcats]

Well, I'm doing my first all-on-my-own tomatoes this year too... and I've done the bare minimum and have great looking green tomatoes all over the place. I'm very excited.

I haven't staked mine at all, I'm just letting them grow wild (weeds too!) although they are propping themselves up by growing through the spaces on deer fencing I draped over them to protect them from my chickens.

I mixed horse manure into the soil over the winter. I've put a little bit of compost in the soil but I don't have much finished compost yet so not a lot of that. I mix coffee grounds into the soil every now and then.

And I water a lot, once or twice a day. They get 100 degree sun beating on them all day this time of year in the desert, and so far it seems that if I do what I've done, keep them watered, and otherwise ignore, everything works out.

[Darrow]

plant your tomatoes deep, about half of the plant needs to go into the ground. I use cages or stakes for support so the tomatos don't touch the soil and rot. I also use wall of waters - you can google Gurneys.com if you're not sure what that is...i'm in a colder climate and this acts like a greenhouse for the plant. Also, mulch around the plant and use a tomato fertilizer. I also pinch off the growth between the branches so the plant concentrates the growth to the fruit.

[Ohiogirl81]

I use cages to support the vines, although half the time the plants refuse to stay inside their cages. Little devils.

The fruit need plenty of calcium. You can supplement a regular fertilizer -- I use Tomatoes Alive from the mail order site Gardens Alive -- with eggshells. Dig a small hole about 6 inches away from the plant (you don't want to disturb the roots if you can help it), and plop in some crushed eggshells. Work the shells into the soil. My plants get a weekly eggshell boost after Sunday brunch.

Two essential times to fertilize: when you plant, and when the plants start to set fruit.

Avoid fungus problems -- black spots, wilting, yellow or brown leaves -- by watering as low to the ground as possible, and watering in the early morning. Most fungi are soilborne, and if you can avoid soil splashing onto the leaves, so much the better.

Good luck!