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How not to grow tomatoes

10 rules for guaranteed failure

Sacramento Digs Gardening
BY Kathy Morrison PUBLISHED MAY 27, 2021

Tomato plant with straw mulch and chamomile

Breaking most of the failure rules here: The tomato plant is green and healthy, with support, straw mulch, and a companion chamomile plant to attract bees and

other pollinators. (Photos: Kathy Morrison)

Tomato plants in a row with boards for walking along

This tomato row uses wooden stakes and strings to keep

the plants in line.

Just looking around the community garden where I have a plot, you can see so many different ways to grow tomatoes. Some people have them in ditches, some in raised beds. Fancy cages in one plot, contraptions of wire and twine and stakes in another. Some plants are pruned so much they look like bean poles; other tomato plants are so full and fluffy that you can't tell one plant from its neighbor.

You know what? We all manage to harvest tomatoes. So when it comes to growing Sacramento's favorite crop, I've decided that the only hard-and-fast rules are how NOT to grow tomatoes. If there's a link after the rule, it takes you to a good explanation of why this approach will fail:

1) Plant from seed, and leave the seedling indoors, with inadequate light, as long as possible. Result: Tall, lanky plant with a skinny stem. See this guide, especially page 4

2) Alternatively, buy a tomato in a 4-inch pot, then keep it there for months. This also works with the seedling in #1.

3) Dig a very shallow hole. That is, when finally getting around to plant the 4-inch-contained, skinny, pathetic plant. Or put it in a very shallow pot, certainly no bigger than a 2-gallon container. Who needs roots? Same link as above , page 5.

4) Put those plants close together in the same place they grew last year. No amendments allowed. Explained here

5) Cages, are you kidding? They're vines -- let them flop all over the bare ground. Farmers do it. Back to this again, page 6 especially. Also this

6) Water the plants when you feel like it. Five minutes one day, then 5 more next week. Or flood the area daily. Make them hew to your schedule. Oh, and no fertilizer, either. Here's a classic.

7) Don't bother planting any flowers or herbs for pollinators. Why get the bees in on this? Try this link or this one

Is this sad or what? Never planted,
never will be.

8) Pests are natural, so let them roam your tomatoes. Spider mites, tomato hornworms, whiteflies -- eh, just doing what comes naturally. Try this and scroll down to the pest section.

9) Blossom end rot? You know, those dark mush spots on the ends of the tomatoes (assuming your plant managed to produce any). Must be a calcium deficiency, so buy calcium tablets and put them in the soil. http://farmerfred.com/blossomendrot.htm

10) Tomatoes like full sun. We live in "Sacratomato," after all, so that triple-digit summer heat shouldn't bother the tomato plants. Don't even think of using burlap or shade cloth over them to protect the fruit. Gotta love exploding tomatoes.

---------------------------------------------

So there it is, how to guarantee you won't get tomatoes.

I finally planted the last of my container tomatoes this week. Here's the official 2021 list:

The familiar:

Big Beef, Juliet, Jet Setter, First Prize, Lemon Boy -- all hybrids -- and Sweet Chelsea, a vigorous large cherry.

New for me:

Sungold Select -- a Wild Boar Farms variation on an old favorite; Chef’s Choice Red -- AAS winner; Brad’s Atomic Grape -- wild multicolored grape tomatoes, from Wild Boar Farms; Pink Boar -- pink and dark green, also WBF; Wine Jug -- dark purple, WBF; Tasty Pink -- a pink heirloom and incidentally a gorgeous plant; Orange Oxheart -- free seeds so why not; Lucid Gem -- Wild Boar Farms again, this one orange and yellow with purple skin.

In pots at home:

Patio Choice Yellow; Better Bush -- best container tomato I've found; Robeson -- overwintered survivor.

In grow bags, my big experiment this year:

Braveheart cherry; AAA Sweet Solano -- a Wild Boar Farms yellow-red; Cherokee Carbon -- wonderful hybrid of two heirlooms.

Here's hoping we all have a successful tomato-growing year, drought notwithstanding.

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Keywords:

seeds tomatoes Sacramento roots pests irrigation fertilizer gardening vegetables planting bees Sacratomato summer vegetables

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Food in My Back Yard Series

April 29: What's (already) wrong with my tomato plants?

April 22: Should you stock up on fertilizer? (Yes!)

April 15: Grow culinary herbs in containers

April 8: When to plant summer vegetables

April 1: Don't be fooled by these garden myths

March 25: Fertilizer tips: How to 'feed' your vegetables for healthy growth

March 18: Time to give vegetable seedlings some more space

March 11: Ways to win the fight against weeds

March 4: Potatoes from the garden

Feb. 25: Plant a fruit tree now -- for later

Feb. 18: How to squeeze more food into less space

Feb. 11: When to plant? Consider staggering your transplants

Feb. 4: Starting in seed starting

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Garden Checklist for week of May 4

Enjoy this spring weather – and get gardening!

* Plant, plant, plant! It’s prime planting season in the Sacramento area. Time to set out those tomato transplants along with peppers and eggplants. Pinch off any flowers on new transplants to make them concentrate on establishing roots instead of setting premature fruit.

* Direct-seed melons, cucumbers, summer squash, corn, radishes, pumpkins and annual herbs such as basil.

* Harvest cabbage, lettuce, peas and green onions.

* In the flower garden, direct-seed sunflowers, cosmos, salvia, zinnias, marigolds, celosia and asters. (You also can transplant seedlings for many of the same flowers.)

* Plant dahlia tubers. Other perennials to set out include verbena, coreopsis, coneflower and astilbe.

* Transplant petunias, marigolds and perennial flowers such as astilbe, columbine, coneflowers, coreopsis, dahlias, rudbeckia and verbena.

* Keep an eye out for slugs, snails, earwigs and aphids that want to dine on tender new growth.

* Feed summer bloomers with a balanced fertilizer.

* For continued bloom, cut off spent flowers on roses as well as other flowering plants.

* Add mulch to the garden to maintain moisture. Mulch also cuts down on weeds. But don’t let it mound around the stems or trunks of trees or shrubs. Leave about a 6-inch to 1-foot circle to avoid crown rot or other problems.

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