December Plant Feature: Tomatoes

Growing your own tomatoes is one of the most satisfying and rewarding endeavours in the garden. Here are our top tomato-growing tips!

How to Grow Abundant Tomatoes!

• Choose your type of tomato: Determinate tomatoes grow on a bush and will produce lots of tomatoes at once (great for making passatas and chutneys!), while Indeterminate tomatoes grow on a climbing vine and produce a steady stream of fruit throughout the warm season. Also consider whether you are growing in the ground, a garden bed, or a pot and choose your variety accordingly. See below for our tomato-choosing guide.
• Sow your seeds when the weather first starts to warm up, usually Aug-Dec in Perth. You can sow the seeds either in seedling raising flats, seedling sized pots, biodegradable pots or directly into the garden. Use or make your own seed raising mix that is not too rich.  If the seedlings are grown in conditions with all nutrient requirements met they will not learn to fend for themselves and less fruit will be grown once transplanted.
• When seedlings grown in containers are approx. 15 to 20 cm tall and ideally have flowered (due to a week of dry conditions before transplant), plant them out in a sunny spot with good airflow with at least 30cm between plants.  50 to 60 cm is ideal in garden beds.
• Tomatoes love compost and prefer a pH between 6.5-6.7 so soil preparation before planting is important. Add plenty of organic compost to your soil before planting to see your tomatoes through the season. 
• Remove the bottom leaves from the seedling before transplanting into the ground. Plant in to a depth so that the top set of leaves are above the soil, and roots will form from the buried stem as the plant grows.
• Cover the soil with mulch.  This is very important for soil health and moisture retention.  Possible mulch materials include pea straw, lupin and lucerne.
• Provide support with a stake or trellis at planting time so to not disturb the roots later.
• Make sure to always keep the soil moist! Especially during flowering and fruiting time.
• If your tomatoes are planted in nutritious soil, they shouldn't need much feeding apart from perhaps some diluted worm juice or compost tea when they start to fruit. Tomatoes do like potassium.
• A popular companion plant for tomatoes is basil as it repels insects and disease, and actually increases growth and flavour of the tomatoes!
• Other great companion plants include: marigolds (nematode control), amaranth (repels pests), borage (improves growth & flavour and repels tomato worms), chives, mint, parsley (all improve tomato health), garlic (repels red spider mites), and stinging nettle (improves taste).
• For the most delicious tomato harvest, pick the fruit as soon as it starts to colour and bring it indoors to ripen fully. Exposure to direct Summer sun can sun scald your fruit and cause them to rot. Instead, put some bananas with your tomatoes to speed up the ripening process!  

Photo of our organic, heirloom 'Red Chick' tomatoes from our seed suppliers

Tomato Pests, Diseases and Nutrient Deficiencies 

For fabulous information about the range of pests, diseases and nutrient deficiency affects on tomatoes that you may come across, checkout this wonderful article written by Linda Cockburn - Tomato Pests and Diseases.

If you're growing tomatoes in Perth, we recommend growing them in large pots due to wilt fungus and bacteria that love our soil conditions. Using pots allows the soil to be replaced each season and no need for crop rotation. If you find wilt in your soil (go to above link to find out how) do not plant tomatoes in that garden bed for four years. 

Never plant tomatoes in a garden bed after other solanaceae plants such as capsicum, eggplant and potato.  These plants need to be seasonally planted using a crop rotation plan. 

Choosing a Tomato Variety Guide

The following list contains all the organic, heirloom tomato seed varieties we stock at Urban Revolution, and a little bit about each one to help you choose the best one for your garden. Come and see our full seed range in store!

For more information on growing tomatoes, check out this article from Milkwood Permaculture and this article from Sustainable Gardening Australia.