“It seems that everyone I know, wants to learn just how to grow,
This tart-sweet fruit with wondrous glow, the one and only to-ma-to!”
Related Posts: How to Grow, Growing Organically and The Art of Propagation!
Quite simply on the top of the popularity charts, this fruiting veggie is also amazingly hardy and easy to grow, and is a sheer joy to behold when laden with tomatoes!
SEASONS: Tomato plants are seasonal. They are best grown in consonance with summers, as they need hot suns to bring fullness to fruit. Ideally, sow in early January for harvest from March to May. You could also try sowing in September and aim to get harvests through till May if your plants are robust enough, but the Mumbai winters would be likely to lower fruit production.
PROPAGATING: This plant is propagated from seed. Buy tomato seeds from your garden shop, or prepare your tomato seeds from scratch. Scoop out the gelatinous center of the tomato with its seeds, place in a bowl, add a few tablespoons of water, cover loosely with plastic wrap and leave in a warm place to ferment. Stir the mixture each night, replacing the plastic wrap loosely each time. At the end of three days, remove the fermented surface and sieve the mixture to get the seeds. Wash seeds well and spread out to dry on a clean surface. After a week your seeds will be ready for use or storage.
GERMINATING: Tomato seeds can be germinated in seeding pods or germinating dishes/seeding baskets that are prepared with a mixture of compost and peat moss. Seeds can be sown in 1/2 inch deep holes. Place in semi-shade and spray water evenly. Spray your sown seeds daily until seedlings emerge in 7-15 days
PLANTING OUT: Plant out your seedlings when they are at least 2 weeks old and sturdy in stem. Choose very well-drained, very highly composted and manured soil that is slightly acidic, in full, direct and strong sunlight. Space out your seedlings 12-18 inches apart to allow these bushy plants the space they need to grow out to maturity. Tomato plants will grow well on open plots and in medium to large containers.
NURTURING: Place mulch around the soil to reduce evaporation and water deeply each day, twice a day in peak summer. As your plant grows, support its branches by loose ties to a conical tomato cage, or tripod of sticks, about 4 feet high. Snip off yellowing branches and feeder branches to strengthen growth of the main plant. Keep adding compost and manure to your potting mix, covering up exposed plant roots as you do so, to strengthen the plant.
HARVESTING: Harvest your tomatoes when they are fully-grown and sun-ripened. Your plants will produce for the entire season (4-5 months or longer with some good nurturing). When productivity declines at end of season, uproot, replenish your soil, and use that space for rooting or leafing veggies next.
A single tomato plant can produce up to 50 tomatoes per season
Harvest your tomatoes when they are fully grown and sun-ripened
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Mumbai Farmer 
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Hi can a single tomato plant be grown in a 10 inch pot? Thanks in advance.
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Yes, it certainly can. Do use well composted and manure soil as tomatoes thrive on good nutrition.
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In Denmark where I grow lots of tomatoes, we have problems when temp is above 28 degr C as the flowers fall off the plants. Amazing tht there is such a difference from region to region
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Yes, it is! There are various cultivars of tomatoes that are more suited to local climates. Overall though, extreme hot weather beyond the cultivar’s limits, will lead to flower drop. For local tomato species, they can withstand and flourish even till 35 degrees Celsius.
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Hello. My tomato plants are almost 3 months old. It’s bearing a lot of flowers but they’re not converting to fruit in spite of well watering, timely fertilizing, full sunlight and pollination by bees and hand pollinating. I have only 2 fruits on one plant and over 25 flowers that don’t seem to change much. What could i be doing wrong? Please advise. Thanks!
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Hi there, sorry it’s been a while since I got down to replying to comments….! Tomato flowers may drop off because of inadequate calcium and phosphorus in your soil, all other things being given viz. sunlight, presence of pollinators etc. You could consider amending your soil for future crops by mixing in some bonemeal/fishmeal or some seaweed extract. A sprinkling of slaked lime would also help but it not necessary if you add the first suggested amendment. Once your soil is amended with calcium and phosphorus this way, you would want to retain those nutrients in the soil and not let it leach away, and the best way to do that is by also amending with compost, along with the first suggested amendment.
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