Friday, August 21, 2009

Tomatoes

I found this year to be very slow growing my tomatoes because of the weather going from 1 extreme to another(getting so hot and dry to so cool and damp). My tomatoes have been doing alot better then most in my area mainly because I gave my tomatoe plants alot of water in the early evening just before sunrise so it was cooler and no chance of the plants wilting from the moister/heat combination. Over the past 4 weeks they have gone from 1.5 feet tall to being almost 4.5 feet tall for some of the plants. Also to keep the plants healthier and a chnace to bloom more tomatoes then you expected is to trim them down on occassion. By trimming I mean any branches with leaves that are starting to wilt cut them off close to the main stem and any branches even if thier lush and green if they don't have any flower pods or sections coming off of them that may flower take them off too(usually these branches are in the mid to lower section on the main shaft). Another good thing to do is on the main stem if any of the branches that have flowers on them have a little leaf coming in between the main shaft of the plant and that blooming branch, pinch that little leaf off so it doesn't bloom into an extra branch thats not needed(it will only produce a leafy branch but no tomatoes) and the section I mean is the V section between the main shaft and the branch sprouting out from it, that little green leafy stem is called a sucker because it takes away some of the nutrients for your tomatoes to bloom even more. Follow all these steps and your plants will thrive like mine are even in these wierd weather conditions. You can see in my main picture from July my tomatoe plants along the bottom were barely growing up to the tomatoe rings I set them in, but now thier huge and I have so many tomatoes that it will be another good year for my family and friends to get free tomatoes. Oh one last thing, make sure when following any of these steps to try your best not to bump the flowers or little stems that will flower to hard because they may fall off and thats where your tomatoes bloom from. I'll post a new picture of my tomatoe plants once I get my camera back.

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