If you live in Western Washington and you want to grow great tomatoes, it’s possible.
But you’ll have your work cut out for you with our local climate, which is pretty much the opposite of what these tropical South American vines prefer: consistently hot, sunny days, warm nights and moist sum
mer soil.
You can plant them this Memorial Day weekend, but you can also wait a week or two.
Tomato plant starts won’t set fruit until nighttime temperatures stay above 50 degrees. And putting them outside too early can slow them down.
Acclimate your tomato plants to our less-than-tropical weather by putting them outside during the day and bringing them back inside at night for about week before planting.
Where should you plant them?
Here are three approaches with pluses and minuses for each.
Pot or bag
Pros: Pots are a preferred tomato growing method for many local gardeners because they warm up quickly, which is good for root growth and overall plant health.
Pots can be placed in easy-access places, such as patios, decks or anywhere else that offers full sun.
If you don’t want to fuss with heavy pots, you can try flexible plastic grow bags that can be filled with soil for tomato time but stored flat during the off season.
Pots can be sterilized at the end of the growing season to ward off diseases.
Snohomish County master gardener Jeff Thompson recommends replacing the top 6 inches of soil before replanting tomatoes in pots in subsequent seasons.
Cons: Pots, especially small ones, dry out quickly. Potting mixes, which contain peat moss or coir, can retain moisture if wetted thoroughly. But once they dry out completely, they are harder to keep moist.
Tip: Thompson recommends 20-gallon black plastic nursery pots filled with potting mix (not garden soil, which can easily become compacted), plus extra fertilizer, dolomite lime and a handful of compost.
He waters every other day, usually about 1 1/2 gallons per watering. During particularly hot weather, he waters every day.
Tomatoes are heavy feeders. Thompson recommends fertilizing again after the first tomatoes form.
Upside down
Pros: If you are short on space or sunny ground, hanging tomato plants upside down is a good growing strategy, thanks to increasingly popular planters such as the Topsy Turvy.
Gardener’s Supply now has a similar product called the Revolution tomato planter with a built-in 1-gallon water reservoir and a 360-degree swivel hook.
You don’t have to cage or stake hanging tomatoes.
Cons: Tomatoes in upside-down planters require more frequent watering than tomatoes in pots, “twice a day minimum” in hot weather, Thompson said. That’s quite a commitment if you don’t have drip irrigation or if you need to leave town for a week in August.
Also, planters can become extremely heavy, so you’ll need a sturdy structure that can hold the weight of the planter, the soil when it’s wet and bulging clusters of fruit.
The Revolution planter directions recommend a support strong enough to hold 40 pounds, more than your average hanging flower basket.
In the ground
Pros: Tomatoes planted in the ground have more room to stretch their roots, which means much better access to nutrients and water. They won’t dry out as quickly as tomatoes in containers and that means a lot less work for you.
You can surround in-ground plants with sheets of reflective red plastic to block weeds, retain moisture and, according to some sources, deliver higher yields.
Cons: Ground soils don’t warm up as quickly as those in pots or hanging planters, which can slow tomato growth. Raised beds can be a happy medium because they warm up faster but also have soil below them that roots can penetrate.
Diseases can survive on the surface of soil from season to season.
It’s why many home gardeners practice crop rotation, waiting three years before planting the same crop in the same place again. If you’re short on sunny spots in your yard, it’s not very practical.
If your soil is rocky, it can be difficult to push tomato cages into the ground because the tines can run into the rocks.
Tomato tips
Seek sun: Grow tomatoes in the sunniest site in your yard, a minimum of six hours of direct sunlight. Heat reflected from a house, patio or rockery can help tomatoes thrive, too.
Start small: Plant at least one cherry or grape variety of tomato. This will almost guarantee you’ll have some ripe tomatoes before the end of the growing season. Beefier tomatoes take longer to mature and ripen. Local cherry tomato favorites include Sweet Million (red), Sun Gold (orange), Yellow Pear (bright yellow).
Water: It’s better to water too much rather than not enough with tomatoes. If the top two inches of soil are dried out, it’s time to water. Avoid getting tomato leaves wet, which can encourage disease.
Plant them deep: Usually the rule for transplanting nursery plants or starts is to put them in the ground at the same level they were at in the pot. This is not true for tomatoes. Take off the bottom half of the plant’s leaves and bury all but the remaining top half of the plant. Roots will grow along the entire stem of the plant under ground to create a stronger plant.
Prune: To prevent soil-borne diseases from splattering onto your plants, remove the lower leaves of the plant so that no part of the plant, besides the stem, touches the ground. Prune out dead and yellowing leaves to provide good air circulation. Don’t prune plants when they are wet.
Support: Once tomatoes hit their stride, they grow more like vines than shrubs. Provide as much support as you can with cages, trellises or even hooks on the eaves of your house.
Resources: Learn more about the products mentioned here at www.gardeners.com and www.territorialseed.com. Find a tomato-pruning tutorial at tinyurl.com/TomatoPruning.
Sarah Jackson: 425-339-3037, sjackson@heraldnet.com.
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