Every new gardener wonders how to grow the best tomatoes with the least amount of effort possible. You want beautiful tomatoes, but you don’t want to throw weird things into the hole with tomatoes (I’m looking at you, fish heads!). You just want the easiest way to grow big tomatoes.
I’m sharing the six easiest things I do to grow great tomatoes- no crazy secret tips, just a couple of simple things even a beginner gardener can do.
P.S. If this is your first year seed starting, start here before moving on to the planting tips below!
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Six Tips for Growing Great Tomatoes
1. Add Powdered Milk to the Hole When Planting
Tomatoes love calcium, and powdered milk is a cheap and easy way to provide it. You can also use bonemeal, but powdered milk is probably already in your kitchen. I have also used it to fix blossom end rot in the past when I’ve been inconsistent with my watering during the summer.
2. Use a Kozy Coat Over Tomato Seedlings
Kozy Coats make a huge difference and are 100% worth the investment. Actually, they’re pretty cheap, so it’s not even that much of an investment. After I first tried these, almost every single tomato I’ve planted has had a Kozy Coat around it!
Here’s a video I made to show how much of a difference Kozy Coats make:
Related: How to Pick the Best Tomato Varieties for Your Garden
I’ve also used Kozy Coats for my peppers, which end up being leaps and bounds ahead of anyone I know in my area.
Related: 10+ Easy-to-Grow Vegetables for Beginners (Plus 5 You’ll Want to Avoid)
3. Stake the Tomato Plant & Add Mulch
Once the tomato has outgrown the Kozy Coat, remove it and put a tomato cage around it instead. Bonus points if you can also put some mulch around the base of the tomato. This will help retain the moisture and prevent blossom end rot later in the summer.
4. Water, Water, and Water Some More
Water your tomato plants every day and twice a day when the temperature is above 25 degrees Celsius. Inconsistent watering is the biggest cause of blossom end rot. If you happen to forget to water and blossom end rot happens to your tomatoes, it can be fixed in the plant in two weeks with this simple process.
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5. Remove Suckers
Tomato suckers are the little shoots that grow at a 45-degree angle from the stem. Cutting these suckers off of indeterminate tomato varieties will help the fruit of the tomato grow larger because it doesn’t have to compete for as many of the nutrients.
If removing the suckers seems too intimidating and you don’t do it, you’ll still get tomatoes–they just might be smaller.
6. Add Fertilizer Every Week
I add a water-soluble fertilizer every week to my tomatoes to give them a little boost. Tomatoes are heavy feeders (they require lots of nutrients), so they really benefit from it. You can use any general-purpose garden fertilizer or compost tea– whatever is readily available and easy.
To make your own compost tea as easily as possible, just add water to worm castings and water your tomatoes with that water.
Related: Best Fertilizers for Your Garden
So that’s it! Six easy steps to easily and simply grow the best tomatoes you’ve ever had when you’re a beginner gardener. Try these out this year, then you can get fancy with your tomato-growing strategies as you gain confidence in years to come.
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Green thumbs aren’t just given out at birth. They’re a combination of learning about gardening and trial and error. If you wish you knew more about gardening and had more confidence in your abilities, you need the Growing Roots Gardening Guide. It’s everything you need to go from complete garden newb to confident gardener in one growing season. Get all the details of what’s inside here.
DAVID WALKER