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Tomato is a summer vegetable that requires full exposure to the sun to grow. It grows in loamy, acidic soil, and its flower color is yellow.
For those who feel that growing tomato is hard, let us assure you that it is not. They are productive, versatile, and tastes so delicious. When they are fully grown, they are firm but juicy, have a tangy taste and an aromatic smell.
Tomatoes cannot grow in winters, there is not enough sun exposure, and they cannot tolerate frost unless you plan on growing them indoors with artificial lights.
The soil should be warm enough for the little seedlings to grow into a fully ripe big tomato. The soil’s warmth depends on when summer arrives in your region, and it can be in May or June. All you must do is be patient.
There are so many tomatoes you can grow, either in small pots or in your vegetable garden. However, you want to grow them.
This is a vegetable which is eaten at every season and is quite essential in all households. Therefore you can stop buying them at a high price and instead grow them in your own home.
How Long Does A Tomato Take to Grow?
Calculating the time a tomato takes to grow will start with what time you are harvesting the seeds. The maturity days range from 60-80 or even more.
It is your choice to pick up the seeds for the tomatoes or take up the ones already seeded from the nurseries. Just make sure to not pick one where the flowers have already bloomed, or the leaves have a yellow/brownish color.
Types of Tomatoes
There are a wide variety of tomatoes that you can grow, some of them are listed below:
Cherry Tomato
Roma Tomato
Jubilee Tomato
San Marzano Tomato
Here Are Few Tips on How You Can Grow Your Tomatoes
Seedlings
If you are growing your tomatoes from seeds, make sure that you do not overcrowd them. It would help if you gave your seedlings plenty of room so that they can spread out. You can do this by putting little seedlings in one pot instead of putting much in one. Have many little pots instead of having one big pot.
You can cut off the weaker and smaller seedlings in favor of those which are better growing. If the seedlings are crowded, it disturbs their growth, and they might get a disease later. It would help if you also transferred the seedlings into a little pot when they grew leaves.
Lights and Fan
Seedlings require a string, direct sunlight to grow. Since you cannot get enough sunlight during winters, it is better to grow your seedlings under intense artificial light for 16 to 18 hours per day.
For ensuring that your seedlings grow into beautiful plants, it is recommended to keep them as close as possible under the grow lights until they bloom, and then keep them away.
Just like light, when the seedlings start to grow into plants, they need to move in the air to develop strong roots.
It quickly gets the air if kept outdoors, but if you are growing it indoors, make sure that it gets proper circulation by keeping it under a fan.
Turn on the fan for merely 5-10 minutes, twice a day, to make sure they get enough circulation.
Preheat Your Soil
The thing tomatoes require the most is heat and preheating your soil before burying the leaves is an excellent way to do it.
One way to preheat your soil is to cover it with black or red plastic a few weeks before planting.
The extra warmth in the soil will also make your tomatoes grow faster. Tomatoes grow the best when both the soil and air are the warmest.
You can keep the red soil on while planting your tomatoes, and they will not affect your plants. Instead, they will help your plant to get the sufficient warmth they need.
Burying
When your seedlings have converted into plants, it is time you bury them in the soil. When burying your plants, make sure to plant them deep until only a few leaves are out in the open. Planting this way helps the tomatoes to develop roots all over their stems.
The more the roots, the stronger is the plant, which leads to a big juicy tomato. You can lay your plants in a horizontal way line by line, by digging a hole, or dig a shallow trench and lay them sideways. It will grow and be straight itself.
Mulching
Mulching is required if you are not leaving the plastic on the soil. Putting down the mulch after the soil has warmed, although mulching is to conserve the water, diseases, and not come up on the plant, putting it early will also shade and cool down the soil.
You can add a mulch layer to retain the moisture during the night when the soil has warmed throughout the day.
Remove the Leaves.
When the plant has reached 3 feet in height, remove the bottom leaves from the stem’s foot. These are the first and oldest leaves that have bloomed and are likely to develop a fungus problem.
The bottom leaves get less sunlight and air, which hampers the growth of the plant.
The diseases borne by the soil gets to the bottom leaves faster than the top leaves. Cutting them helps prevent the disease. An alternative to this is spraying some compost tea weekly.
Pruning
Some tiny leaves grow in the crotch joint of two branches, and you need to remove them as they will not bear any fruit.
These will also take away energy from your plant. Be careful when you prune the leaves. If only some leaves are left, then the tomatoes will be less too since it’s the leaves required for photosynthesis and creating sugars for the tomatoes.
Watering
When you have done everything mentioned above, water your plants regularly and deeply in the soil. Missing a few days from watering will lead the plants to get splits and cracked.
Your plants should receive at least one inch of water per week, and during sweltering days, you may need to add more. Similarly, when your fruit has ripened, you can lessen the water. Watering your plants will be your call, based on how much your plants want it.
Bring Out the Tomatoes
Tomatoes take their own time to grow and mostly depend on the weather. One thing you can do to make your tomatoes come fast is pinching the main stem tips during early summers, which will put energy into the plants to start flowering.
You can use this same trick towards the end of summer too when you want your plants to grow faster.
Conclusion
Tomatoes are a vegetable eaten in every part of the world, and it is easy to grow them. With a few tips and tricks, you can quickly grow tomatoes both indoors and outdoors.
The main thing tomatoes require is heat and air, if you have a hot climate, your tomatoes will grow faster, and you will have a beautiful tomato garden.
You can grow the tomatoes either through seedlings or by transplanting them from the nurseries, and with the perfect soil and climate, your seedlings will convert into plants, flowers, and then fruits. Even during winters, you can grow your tomatoes indoors with artificial grow lights.
With the bamboo shelves and grow lights, you can grow your tomatoes inside your home. Any tomato like cherry tomato or a regular tomato can be grown.
And you can shift your plants when they grow to a giant shelf so that your tomatoes can grow in a bigger space.
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