If you enjoyed this video, please “Like” and share to help increase its reach! Thanks for watching 😊TIMESTAMPS for convenience: 0:00 Tomato Growing Mistakes Intro 0:26 Mistake #1: Fertilizing Tomatoes 3:45 Mistake #2: Incorrect Fertilizers 7:28 Mistake #3: Pruning Tomatoes 10:20 How To Determine Tomato Plant Type 11:05 Mistake #4: Tomato Plant Spacing 15:43 Adventures With Dale
This is the first video on tomato pruning that actually explained why you would either want/or not want to prune indeterminate tomatoes. Most sites say "prune the suckers". But no one discusses how close your plants are to each other in relation to this. Thank you!
Yes, I have seen videos that tell you that the suckers will not produce. I broke off a main stock, so I thought what the heck. I have great beefsteaks growing from that sucker. Fried Green tomatoes tonight for dinner !! ❤❤❤ Also,I took the stalk that I broke off and trimmed it down. I now have 3 more plants that are blooming 🎉❤ We shall see. 😊
On indeterminate CHERRY tomato plants, try to minimize pruning suckers, yet at the same time thin foliage in the middle of the plant to allow adequate air flow and prevent disease. On indeterminate non-cherry tomato plants, generally the rule is 2 stems and then prune all suckers after that.
First time I’ve seen a channel explain WHY we might choose to prune a certain way, other than to say we need airflow so single or double stem them. Really impressed with the thoroughness of your channel.
That’s way too much fertilizer. I fertilized once at the beginning with organic fertilizer which slowly becomes bio-available in the soil over time. You need healthy soil for the microbes to help you make the organic fertilizer bio-available. Best thing I did was top with fresh homemade compost throughout the season (as my beds shrank) and occasionally water with fish fertilizer. You don’t have to feed them that much fertilizer. If YOU have to do that much fertilizer, then you might want to do a soil test to see what’s going on with your soil. Your soil isn’t doing the work for you and you’re having to do extra feeds to make up for that. I had a great crop last year and didn’t fertilize near as much as you are recommending.
How often do we continue the higher-potassium/blossom booster food after they flower, just once? Or for a couple of feedings? THANK YOU for all this information, you just stopped me from pruning the wrong type of plants & feeding tomatoes incorrectly all season!
My mind feels like a pinball machine. As soon as I think I know and understand something like pruning suckers, I'm given a whack to the bean into another direction. Always more to learn.
Great input. I grow in greenhouse in the Oregon big dessert and I’ve been single stemming, but they get 10’ tall literally and the fruit prod ruin is low. I have almost zero humidity. I’m going to let these babies bush this year.
I'm intrigued by your opinion that tomatoes need more than compost to produce optimum crops. I've grown tomatoes in raised beds with compost only for more than 30 years and always thought I was getting good production by adding a couple of inches of compost to my beds at the end of each season. I've never accurately measured the number of tomatoes I grow but if I had to guess, it's about 100 pounds - determinate and indeterminate hybrid varieties. I'm cheap and lazy so I've never tried any other method than the one I'm using. But I'm always interested in trying something new if it's worth my extra time and expense. Are there any kind of trials or objective measures that clearly show adding more than compost would measurably improve my yields? Thanks for posting.
I used to use bone meal every year in my garden. I also learned the hard way that you can ruin your soil for about 4 years with over use. Last year I was finally able to use those beds again. There's no fix other than adding zinc and iron which is very difficult to find for home gardeners.
Hmm. Never heard of that happening and a lot of people have used bonemeal every year for many years. Wish we had more feedback on this comment. Ibe been using blood meal and/or bone meal for many years myself
Thank you for all this excellent information on tomatoes! As a Jersey Girl, I will always contend that nothing beats a Jersey tomato! With all this useful info, I will get as close as possible here in PA Zone 6b! Keep on growing!
Learned a lot here. Thank you! I have one question. My burpee bone meal is 6-8-0. Is that solid or too much nitrogen when pairing with the jobes tomato granules the same method you’re doing?
Fantastic! I have been watching your videos for about six months. Best one here. Have you used Alaska Morbloom with the tomatoes? Curious how you would compare to Jack's Bloom or Miracle Gro Bloom. A few feedings, I tried Alaska Fish and Morbloom - so a 5-11-11. BTW - tried your suggestion on colder weather tomatoes, and going for tomatoes earlier. I tried this with Oregon Spring seeds. They are in grow bags, and green tomatoes. Not red yet. Patience is not a strength I possess.
I am really enjoying your content man. Idk why you-tube only just started recommending you. I've been typing gardening questions into you-tube for years now. Congrats on winning the algorithm.
Unpopular opinion: You're spoiling the plants with all the fertilizer. Your soil contains all the nutrients your plant needs, but it needs robust soil biology to unlock those nutrients. Feed the soil, not the plants.
Your average backyard will not be able to provide all the nutritional needs you plants will need to grow. Feeding the soil is not a practical thing at all when considering how much you need for your plants to only relybon compost all year long. This isn't about opinion or not it's just a fact.
@@lexkek5625 That's not true. The essential elements are all there, but not plant available due to compaction and lack of biology. It's not a matter of nutrients, it's a matter of making those nutrients available to the plant. Microbes in the soil communicate with the plant and this is how it gets what it needs. When the microbes aren't there, you have to use synthetic plant available fertilizer to get the nutrients directly to the plant.
@@lexkek5625 - this guy is the only gardening youtuber I see that uses this much fertilizer. Everyone else focuses on soil health and they have great results. I think because this youtuber doesn’t focus on compost and not making his own, his soil is really compromised and thus he needs to fertilize this much. I make my own homemade compost and my plants love it. Last season, I fertilized once in the beginning of the season with organic granulated fertilizer (a handful per plant) and then watered monthly with a water soluble fish fertilizer. I topped with homemade compost as my beds shrank and the plants seemed to love that more. My compost has tons of worms and life in it and those worms go directly into the beds giving my plants a lot of the microbes they need to help breakdown the fertilizer and organic material in the soil to make it bioavailable to the plants.
This is nonsense. Your soil gets rapidly depleted by vegetable gardens. There are no vegetable gardens in nature. You need to apply fertilizer to put in what your plants take out or suffer stunted plants. Soil doesn’t make nutrients. If you aren’t adding them, they won’t appear on their own.
@@TheMillennialGardener you are incorrect. Although it's true that vegetable gardens do not exist in nature, it's also true that nature provides all that vegetables need to grow. Soil doesn't make nutrients, but plants waste + mycorrhizae do. Sequoia trees in the Sequoia Natural Forest are over 300 ft tall, do you think they have ever been fertilized? You really don't know much about soil biology.
I finally pulled a Huge heirloom tomato tree out that had blooms all winter. Many stems all over were dead. I trimmed and placed in water to “save” and regrow. I discovered how quickly cuttings rooted. Question- will all new plants give fruit?
I need to learn more about fertilizer to give to a plant because in three’s years in a row I killed all my plants peppers,cucumbers tomatoes ,because I don’t know how to feed plants thank for videos I will try to practice more .
I would love to see you partner with someone who would watch the videos and then make it into a book! I have a hard time as a new gardener remembering it all but having a chapter of this or chapter on that could really be helpful. Thanks!
I have a very small backyard and no room for an in-ground garden. I use fabric grow bags. Transplanted dwarf tomato varieties end of March for my region, zone 8b. I saw an earlier video of yours about growing dwarf tomatoes versus indeterminate tomatoes. You liked the Celebrity tomato a lot, so I bought Celebrity seeds for my spring/summer garden. The seeds were slow to germinate compared with the other tomato seeds and didn't grow as fast. I thought once I transplanted the seedlings into a 7 gallon grow bag, the plants would get taller. I water consistently, use a slow release fertilizer, powdered bone meal you recommend and every 2 weeks water with a diluted liquid 6-12-6 fertilizer. It's now 2 months after being transplanted, and the Celebrity plants are almost 2 feet tall with lots of little cherry size tomatoes, no big tomatoes. I expected the plants to grow 3-4 feet tall and produce 6-8 oz. tomatoes. My other dwarf plants are growing taller. I have a dwarf variety that was supposed to grow 18" tall with dime to quarter size fruit and was recommended to plant in a 2 gallon grow bag. I used a 5 gallon grow bag, and the plant is a little over 3' tall with big tomatoes. This dwarf tomato experience has been confusing.
I’d rather watch Dale run with his football then watch the NFL! I think I need to step up my fertilizing game. I’m going to integrate some water soluble fert with my slow release and Neptunes Harvest liquid. Can’t wait to see the results. So far my garlic likes being fed weekly.
@@vicwickgardens9174 - it’s really expensive to use that much fertilizer honestly. Though it is hard to source quality compost if you’re not making it yourself so pros and cons.
I'm just saying my tomatoes blow this guys tomatoes away with just homemade compost and a handful of blood meal when they were seedlings. Advice is cool and all but only when it's good.
single stem indeterminate tomato with a foot spacing is good for me, as simple to train one stem per string. completely agree about regular fertilization with balanced NPK. when i first started, i was doing the whole composting thing and only using fish and seaweed fertilizers, and rarely got a good crop. now i've been using only jack's 20:20:20, and we have loads of tomatoes for us to eat, process for later, and to give away to family..all from around 20 plants or so, in a tiny veggie plot. going to grow some sauce tomato types my next season, as eating tomatoes take a lot more work for sauce, with the seed removal. please please please do a vid on how to support heavier peppers and eggplants in a row situation. i havent been able to tame them with horizontal string and stakes. they get top heavy and start breaking, as they keep branching and growing fruit, with the branching i'm not able to secure.
Living in Southern Oregon, we don't have humidity and have a nice long, dry summer. Last year (my first) I trimmed all the suckers from my indeterminate tomatoes and only got a so so harvest. This year, I'll try not trimming to see what happens. Thanks for the advice.
I think it’s hogwash. You know it is an Internet myth, because nobody backs it up with any data. I’ve grown vegetables many different ways, and I see instantaneous results from water soluble phosphorus. It isn’t my imagination. Try it yourself on half the plants and see if you see a difference in that half.
Have you ever experimented with lower doses of Jacks? Your program has you adding over 500ppm nitrogen between the jacks and fish as soluble fertilizers. I never used much more than 6 grams of jacks 3-2-1 formula in drain to waste hydroponics for tomatoes and peppers which amounted to 2-300 ppm N applied weekly depending. This was in a media with no organics. With the amount of rains you get you're just flushing $$$ and fertility into the water table when you would probably get the same effect at 1/2 to 1 tsp a gallon. I agree that many people under-fertilize but this is just overkill.... Not to mention it kind of undercuts the "too much nitrogen" will be catastrophic given your proven results. The only other thing I will say is that over application of salts greatly increases pest and disease pressure esp nitrate and phosphates. I don't get nearly the aphid, leaf hopper and spider mite problems being efficient with my fertility program compared to when I grew all my peppers and tomatoes with just salts.
is buying a 5-15-10 the same as buying a 10-30-20 ? its still a 1:3:2 nutrient ratio.... so you'd just use more, wouldn't you? (or isn't a 5-5-5 fertilizer isn't the same as a 10-10-10, or a 20-20-20?) isn't that just that you mix less into the water if the numbers are higher? They're still in the same % proportion. So wouldn't four times as much of the 5-5-5 mixed in water be the same as one dose of the 20-20-20? ............ help?
Best info on RU-vid ..ty 4 that..QUESTION...in the early stages of growth b4 flowering do u water solely with water fish combo or do u water with plain water also..ratios of the 2 if so please
Hands down the best information I have gotten after 30+ years of growing tomatoes! Not only the pruning video, but the fertilizing videos as well. I've used all these tactics for many years but this guy explains the pros and cons in detail. Thank you for the excellent advice. It's nice to find more than just somebody's insight.
Do you water down the Jacks??? And do you alternate fertilizers, or mix all at once, Jacks and Fish? Thank you. My Hungarian Hearts are the winners on green growth, and anti- humidity and disease this year. I struggle every year. Some of my other varieties already show whote tips on very, very end of some tomato leaves. I am hoping just sun scald. And mildew spots already on my zuchinni rampincantes, UGH!!!!
Thanks for this channel, I am a well seasoned horticulturalist and landscape designer but I always try to learn new things. You always teach me things about veggie gardening and I am grateful especially as I have recently moved to western Washington, zone 8b, built a raised bed vegetable garden and am always watching you for tips. BTW, when are you planning on a fitness channel??? :)
Your videos are interesting and informative, and you really seem to know your tomatoes. BUT... I do dislike the term "sucker." That implies something BAD like a parasite or infection. This is truly not the case. To me, "sucker" means something that is taking away from the plant - like a parasite. It also implies unwanted growth. That is clearly NOT the case. There must be some better way to describe side growth that is desirable.
Quick question: Do you only use the water soluble fertilizers when you fertilize with the granular (so every 2 weeks)? Or do you use the water soluble fertilizer in a different interval than the granular?
Great info. I took your advise about planting early in a previous video and my determinates are starting to flower already. Question, I expect to start harvesting in June/July so after they are done, do you recommend pulling them and starting new seeds to take me into the fall or let them continue to grow. Thanks!
Succession planting is your friend. I have transplants ready to go now and just seeded more tomatoes yesterday. Many strive for the earliest tomato. I'm going for the latest of the year. And when those determinates start fading don't hang on for a few more tomatoes. Yank them and have other crops ready to go. And have a spot picked out for the 2nd and 3rd round. Remember to rotate.
I bought 3 determinate tomatoes for some reason, one is not it was indeterminate and I didn’t have time to prune them so it went branch out so many stems/suckers and so now there’s no fruit and the fruit came later after it got 5’ 😮 I have pruned it and broke some stems/suckers while trellising them 😔👩🌾 thank you for your informative video. I hope the tomatoes grow big 🙏🏻👍♥️😊
I glad you take your gardening seriously lol no seriously you do know your s#$%, i buy some stuff called triple magnesium i put a 1/4 teaspoon in a hafe gallon of water with 1 teaspoon baby shampoo and a small amount of shaved ivory bar soap mixed and everything and tomatoes love it and helps keep some of the creepy crawlers off
My straw bale garden tomatoes (all indeterminate) have been planted for two weeks today and the leaves are curling badly. I am in Kentucky and have tried not to water them so much once I noticed this happening since I did not think they would have disease. How long should I go without watering again assuming it doesn't rain?
It depends on the reason why. Tomato leaves naturally curl in the summer when it gets hot to reduce their surface area and take in less sun. Since leaves are effectively solar panels, when the sun gets too strong, they curl to reduce their size and take in less. As long as it isn’t due to pests or disease, it is normal.
I literally can’t find an answer on google for my question so I came here. Can you cut a tomato plant or any plant at the soil line because you planted store bought seedlings together and now they’re growing large too close to each other? Maybe 3-5 inches from each other? Or can you cut it out with a shovel and remove the roots too. My fear is damaging the intertwining roots? What should I do if my plants are too close to each other in a raised garden bed and are about 1-2 feet tall now? We just planted the seedlings we bought that were growing together in a small pot from the store. I now realize there are three separate plants growing basically right next to each other. Any advice would help. Thank you
Has anyone else experienced miracle grow bloom booster foaming up almost like soap? I've never used this stuff before and my other fertilizer never even remotely foamed.
Can anyone tell me if i have to wait to pick/eat tomatoes if i used chemical fertilizer? I read somewhere that you gotta wait 2 weeks to eat after using in-organic fertilizer. I use foxfarm grow big and tiger bloom
Are there any other rules for pruning suckers i.e even if you wanted two or main stems would you still prune off suckers in the early stage of the plant till a certain height? Also for containers that are very spaced, would you just let them grow all suckers?
I don’t understand why people think it is expensive. This is $2-3 worth of fertilizer. It lasts all season for numerous applications. For the cost of a tank of gas, maybe less, you have food for the entire season.
@@steveo1240 it all adds up. There’s bone meal then 5-3-3 then bloom booster then 20-20-20. The soil, the manure, the compost, the seeds, the seed starting mix, the lights, the seed trays. The trellis. Then there is the water, the flowers, the insect control, hopefully no diseases, Now we get to harvesting and preservation. And on and on. If only doing a few tomatoes. That’s fine but trying to provide a family with food gets very expensive comparatively.
@@TheMillennialGardener stuff you recommend is not $2/$3 dollars and you usually recommend at least 3 products. Don’t get me wrong your information is excellent. Explains everything even has the various time stamps. Just excellent stuff. I just need some cost saving ideas for all this expense. On fixed income and inflation is killing me.
Absolutely the best tomato growing video I’ve seen on RU-vid. I grow tomato plants in grow bags. Following the advice of “others” and pruning the suckers…I had almost no tomatoes last year. I grow both determinate and non-determinate varieties. Before I even watched u here today, I decided not to do that this season sensing I shouldn’t. Your advice here reinforces my strategy with the reasons why I will not prune. TY.
I’m glad it was helpful. If you’re growing indeterminate varieties, prune them for your infrastructure. That may be 1, 2, 3 main stems, etc. Determinates, do not prune except the lowest leaves if you choose.
Pfff fff :) guess what? I use only cow manure which are graizing nearby my place put it in the soil in autumn next year i have healthy huge tomatoes and i don't even prune or juggle whit them as many RU-vid videos are demanding you to proceed just water them keep weed free that's it
You’re using hundreds of dollars or compost. Of course if you get an outrageous deal, it throws the economics out of whack. The fact is it will take hundreds of dollars of compost to equal dozens of dollars of fertilizer. Fertilizer is much more affordable. Compost is not fertilizer, and using it as such costs an arm and a leg unless you have some sort of loophole.
I always go to your videos as my main reference ( even though I'm in the SW desert), as I find them very logical and scientific. I never forget to add bone meal after seeing one of your videos. Thanks.
I do a mixter of fertlizers consisting of Master Blend 4-18-38 Epsom Salt and Calcium Nitrate 15-0-0 in a blend of 3 grams , 2 grams, 3grams per gallon of water. I do this twice per week adding 2 cups to each plant. As I have very small garden only 7 tomato plants all are independent.
Jesus, I had no idea there were such a thing as determinate and indeterminate plants FFS!! Guess I'll be lucky if I see any tomatoes at all this year. Well, guess I will be better educated for next year. smh
There are several different types. Indeterminate tomatoes, determinate tomatoes, semi-determinate tomatoes, dwarf tomatoes...you can really plant a large diversity. Determinate tomatoes are very low maintenance. They require basic staking, no pruning, and they ripen their fruit much more quickly. You can get production on a determinate tomato in 4 months that would take an indeterminate tomato 6 months. Having separate indeterminate and determinate rows can really increase production.
I am looking at purchasing some of the Jack's 10-30-20 for my tomatoes, bell peppers, and cucumber plants. I also see that Jack's makes a Tomato Feed 12-15-30. Have you tried this product? Do you find that the 10-30-20 is still better for the flowering vegetable plants?
I'm pretty much breaking every rule there is for tomatoes! I have 30 tomatoe plants! Several are over 5 foot tall! The look more like a hedge that tomato plants. I've never pruned a single limb or leaf! When I planted my garden I tilled in a huge amount of horse and chicken manure! A lot of people say to never use fresh chicken poop but I do all the time and it never hurts me. I'm in Eastern Texas and got most of my stuff in the ground the first week of March. I've picked green beans three times already and my green beans are massively bushy! I'm going to let my 4th picking be seeds for next year. My Butternut squash were aborting at roughly 3", the vines were 5 to 6 feet so I put a small shovel of fresh chicken poop whe the vine comes out of the ground! BOOM! I not have 5 Squash on one plant! I counted set tomatoes yesterday and my top three plants have 17, 14 and 14. Mine are heirloom that my dad has been growing for years so he sat me up with plants the last two years. We are harvesting tomatoes daily right now, but it's just one here, one there. I'm sure I'm fixing to be flooded with tomatoes pretty soon! But I have one question. My dad gave me 4 yellow tomatoe plants that bought the seeds. The plants are enormous! The vine diameter is double most all of my tomatoes. All 4 have had large numbers of blooms, but none has set a single fruit! 3 of the 4 are over 5 feet tall. My dad's plants of this variety has fruit but his plants are half the height mine are!
Help! 2nd year container tomato and pepper grower (from last yrs seeds at least 😁)...what 'mulch' should I use, on my small porch 'garden'... (Colorado) Thanx for any replies 🙌
I'm in the ILM area, so this is very helpful! This my first time trying to grow Roma and cherry tomatoes. My cherry tomato plant is doing fine, but with the Roma plants I've been dealing with BER. They are in containers, and I have started watering them more regularly, but it looks like I may need to adjust what I'm fertilizing with, as well as not pruning them so much. Thanks for the video!
This is my first year growing tomatoes in pots after 13 years of growing them in the ground (dang juglone from walnut trees). I'm growing them in 25 gallon pots and was planning to prune my indeterminates to one stem, per usual, but this video reminded me that since my spacing is about 2' and the grow bags are 25 gallons, I can prune them to 2 stems. Amazing info and VERY well presented, per usual!
I am sooo glad I watched this!!! I'm new at growing tomatoes, I only have 3 indeterminate in pots in my backyard here in Michigan. I was getting ready to go out and start hacking every single sucker I see!!! Lol. You taught me that it's a space thing depending on your grow area. Now it all makes since! I'm feeding them right with water soluble 18-18-21 and I have Dr. Earth granulate 4-6-3. Thank you for explaing things so clearly. I just subscribed to your channel. Dale is awesome!! ✌
