BEST Tips and Tricks For Growing Tomatoes In Your Garden 

God bless you , Mr.Greg I couldn't have a big garden this year due to emergency back fusion then I caught SEPSIS, thank God I survived after being on IV Rocephin for 6 weeks , But my husband did what he could after work, and our granddaughters helped To get us extra food - during this horrible economy issue , I truly appreciate everything you & Mrs Sheila have been teaching hundreds of thousands of people how to grow their own food . Have a wonderful holiday weekend. Mrs josette Tharp Montgomery County, Texas 🙏 ❤ My husband even put shade cloth over several raised beds as the heat has been so bad over here ... I can use my walker and get out on our deck & water our grow bags & watch each morning the beautiful lil harvest we will have hopefully. ❤❤❤❤ June 30, 2023

Dry the egg shells in the oven on 180 and then put them in your blender until powdered. Greatly decreases the time needed to decompose the calcium into a bioavailable form.

You just save up your eggs through the winter dry them in the oven, then put them through a blender and you got calcium powder! I’ve got a 1 gallon ice cream bucket full of it now.

The same time I plant my nightshades (tomatoes, peppers, eggplants) is usually the same time I have an egg glut from my home flock. I bury a cracked egg under each transplant and two off to each side, with a sprinkle of Epsom salts. I’ve had exactly one case of BER, and two of cat face tomatoes. Both times were when I was away (family funerals) and no one watered the plants. Got a timer dedicated to my nightshade plot, and now no issues.

I’m definitely hoping for some good old fashioned tomatoes this year that taste like my granddaddy’s did. I’ve never been able to grow tomatoes until they accidentally came up in my compost container last year and they just wouldn’t stop producing , even after we’d covered them from all the freezes we kept getting. This year I’m gardening on purpose, that last year gave me inspiration to try again. Hoss has become my gardening guide!

Greg YOU are the BEST ON THE INTERNET, educating us! LOVE YOU AND Mama Hoss' CHANNEL - Let's get DIRTY!!!

Your tips for growing tomatoes have been a game-changer for my own garden.

What a privileg to have people like you sharing the knowledge they've gained over the years. I will definitly try this. Thank you sir and may you have a great harvest. Greetings from switzerland🙋🏼‍♂️

Greg, I love your straight rows and how even your steaks look. There is nothing like having a tidy garden and I’m so grateful I found your website years ago because I’ve learned so much from you on how to garden here in the south and I absolutely love my drip tape kit I bought from you because it aids in keeping a tidy garden as well! Thanks for everything you do for us gardeners. I know I say that a lot but I mean it!

Great tips, much appreciated, Thank-You !

Thank you, great information!

Use bone meal. It has both calcium and phosphorus, phosphorus for fruit production.

I didn't know about Calicum extending shelf life , thanks.

That is one beautiful mater garden, Mr. Hoss! My Hossinators are looking great.

This is the best dose of tomato learning your going to find!

Y’all are amazing people

Maters looking real good Greg!

Very good delivery. I love your best tip videos. Short, but packed with really good info.

HOSS = The BOSS Worth watching twice. We can all listen. 2nd time to understand. Book marked to refer too!

great video Greg! Thanks for all you and the team at Hoss do to help us grow our own food!

Hello from across the river in LA, "Lower Alabama" . I just found ya'lls channel this weekend and have been binge watching it a night instead of sleeping. My daddy and grand daddy always gardened when I was a kid. They plowed with a mule pulling a steel beam with a bottom plow and then a middle buster and sweeps on a wooden beamed plow. We originally planted using an old Cole Dropper. These were all mu Grand Daddy's implements when we farmed for a living as a young man. We still have all this stuff in the barn. Of course when I was a teenager and a young man I had no desire to garden. I will turn 55 this July and have found that I have an interest in growing stuff now. I'm sure a head shrinker could tell me exactly what is going on in my head that has motivated me to garden. Whatever the reason I am now in my 2nd year of trying to grow vegetables on a 30'x 60' plot. Last year was a disappointment but I did a soil test this spring and figured out I had the worst soil this side of the Sahara desert. I have worked like a Hebrew slave to improve the soil this spring and I am in the middle of year 2. I am way behind on getting most things in the ground but I can already tell things are going to be better this year. Thank ya'll for all the great information and encouragement.

Thank you Greg for the helpful tips my Roma tomatoes had blossom rot last year was very disappointing didn't get a lot canned hoping for a good crop this year

Thanks for the info Greg.

Excellent video could not have been explained any better best on RU-vid thanks for sharing

What a nice and neat beautiful garden with great looking plants.

Good advice. Thanks for the information.

10-4 On The Calcium For The Tomatoes Hoss Thank You

Awesome teaching video. Thanks so much!

Love these videos

Very timely, I checked yesterday and I have a few tomatoes with BER.....

I'll always trust a southerner to provide the best advice about tomato growing! I have one question though. What do you do if you give your tomatoes too much calcium and they start growing teeth? 😆

Very useful information. Thank you

Thanks for this great information Greg very, very helpful I've learned so much from you Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us its put us year's ahead from where were we would be just learning on our own Now let's get these maters🍅

When I dig my hole to plant my tomatoes, I’ll throw in some black cow some Epson salt and some Gibson in the whole mix up pretty good and then add a little bit of 543 in there as well

Excellent lecture on calcium and tomatoes.

OMG!!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!!

Great video thanks for all the info

drip irrigation fixed my blossom end rot issues, without even having to apply calcium. there's usually plenty of calcium in soil, as a basic component of soil. "garden lime" has calcium and magnesium, and is expensive. farmers often use equivalent of builder's or hydrated lime. have to be careful with it and it's hard to apply but, efficient calcium and cheap. gypsum is calcium sulphate, which becomes available slowly, unless using the premium fine ground and prilled variety, like Hoss Tools supply. Potassium is an oft overlooked nutrient and required in very large quantity. Some soils have it available, and some dont. Potassium is critical for all nuttient uptake. any plants grown in media without soil need calcium, magnesium, sulfur supplied, as these are usually absent from fertilizers, because these interact with fertilizers, so not packaged together. i cant get soil tests easily here, that's why it's even more important to get good advice from Hoss Tools, rather than wasting time and money on superficially wise misinformation

I was surprised that you didn't mention bone meal as a calcium supply , I am applying it to the soil before planting and so far no blossom end rot with over 2 dozen tomatoes on the plant's ?

Eggscellent video , Greg! 😊

Powdered milk works good too

Thanks! Can wait to get some garden fresh tomatoes.

I have always used garden lime placed in the hole when I plant tomatoes and has always worked. I forgot one year and half my plants had end rot on them.

Very good info

Thank you for making the calcium issue more clear. Last year, we had erratic weather, with periods of very dry weather followed by abnormal periods of heavy rain, followed by draught- like conditions. My tomatoes suffered with BER when they began fruiting and then seemed to just grow out of it when the weather got drier. I do use gypsum and calcium nitrate, but I think this year, I'm going to be more diligent in applying pelletized gypsum when the weather is wet, because during those weeks, I didn't need to water and after that first wet period is when I got the BER.

Thank you!

Around here (manitoba) we sometimes get blossom end rot if it's too cold early in the season. Apparently the plant can't transport the calcium properly if it's too cold when its blooming. Probably not an issue in your area, but I thought I would mention it in case anyone lives in a colder area and is still having problems.

Thanks very much!

Great video.

Blossom end rot, ill make compost tea with some crushed egg shells.

Greg Does peppers need calcium as well. Thanks for another awesome video

Sheetrock waste I had not thought of that! I am going to till my bed next weekend so I need to get my hands on some stat.

Focus is fuzzy, but info is fantastic 👌 thanks 😊

Magnesium sulfate can be used to lower the pH of the soil thereby making calcium that is in the soil more readily available. You can have adequate calcium in the soil, but if the pH is off (usually too high) calcium is not soluble in the soil solution and thereby unavailable.

My maters are looking great this year. last years cold snaps caused me no end of trouble . Epson salts provides sulfur and magnesium not calcium. you rarely need Epson salts when growing in the ground . I do use it in my raised beds and in my kiddy pool beds once a year

Great video

Yes sir I've been watching your videos for quite some time. I would like to know do you grow indeterminate tomatoes and if so how do you trellis ? Thanks in advance for any advice.

Greg, great video but can you tell me your watering and fertilizing routine? How often do you fertilize through the drip?

Great ideas, your garden looks great what do you do to control grass and weeds?

I always have lots of calcium in my plants. I have problems with blossom end rot still. But it's a ph problem here, you should talk about that more

Intermountain desert west the soil has lots of calcium, but very little organic matter that is needed for tomatoes to access the calcium.

I trust any man that calls himself Hoss 😂. I had no idea Drywall was gypsum!

Gypsum hell yeah and it's easy to get. You can get some spackle and really dilute it with water and probably poured around the plants for only a couple of dollars. Plaster of Paris same thing. Be careful not to make it too thick or you'll be making rocks

Thank you for the tips. curious do have guys have Asian Jumping worms down there? They are completely decimating my soil here in NH.

I but thank you you are doing for free here much love I grow everything lol thank you

Good info on the calcium, thanks. Unlike Carol's comment, I just used Calcium nitrate with my liquid fertilizer to my container tomatoes. (4-18-36) Prior to Xplanting them, I put 12-10-5 veggie granular fertilizer with Calcium. In the lower mid section of the potting mix. However some of my new selections, determinate for 2022 some have very bad Blossom end rot. The worse was Roadster, then Invincible. All my others that Ive been growing for years fared ok. The other new tries like, Jamestown, Tasti-Lee, and Summer Pick were fine. So my 2nd season of tomatoes down here in zone 9b. Ill add some powder gypsum, or your granular gypsum. Thank You for all the years of good info from your site, and seeds as well.

I did good for my first time 😊

Good morning. Great information on the tomato 🍅. I do have another question. A home Gardner told me to take off all the suckered branches on the plants to only leave the main trunks of the plant. So basically that would leave me with trunk looking plants and folage only on the top with the blooming flowers. Is this good to do or will this stress out my plants? Thank you.

Can you recommend a good by weekly fungicide for tomatoes? I’m over here in Eufaula Al.

Garden Lime is also a good source of calcium and is cheaper than Gypsum

What about using 10 1010 fertilizer will that work

PUT EGG SHELLS IN OVEN IN A CLEAN BAKING TRAY AT GAS 4 TO 6 FOR 1/2 HOUR THEN CRUSH WITH IN A MORTAR AND PESTLE TO A POWDER

Great video. Is crab shell a good source of calcium?

Hoss... what about this aspirin thing that is to promote the plants ability to do better. I saw a video that when you foliar feed 600mg of ground aspirin in 1 gallon of water it helps tremendously...what is your take on the matter?

Greg, I love these quick garden tips. However, to be honest, I liked the old Gardening with Greg jingle better. It had a certain pop to it, kind of like the hard hitting tips you give in these videos.

I’ve got about 3 or 4 tomato plants that are wilting and dying at random even with sufficient water. I’m a new gardener and any suggestions would help. I’m in zone 8a. Thanks!

what is a good cover crop for a small garden 30x30

I found the perfect solution for blossom end rot some years ago. Just plant cherry tomatoes! No more blossom end rot! Lol All kidding aside, I've tried everything and I mean everything to combat ber. I get it every year. I wonder if it's more about an over watering situation. We get lots of heavy rain in spring and summer. I'm at wits end with ber. It won!

In an earlier video you mentioned not planting your tomatoes in the same location to avoid disease in the soil. Any suggestions for those like me who don't have an option to switch garden areas due to space?

Is overhanging tree leaf sap bad for my vegetable garden? Thanks!

Blossom End rot can be caused a lack of water, which causes the lack of calcium being pushed around the plant.

I have a few plants in 5 gallon buckets. What kind of fertilizer do you recommend?

Greg, I have a question about trellising my 36 tomato plants. I see you have a t-post every two plants. Are they determinates or indeterminates? I need some help with this. I've been researching Google and videos. Getting no where. Thanks.

Just use cal-mag yes 👍🏽

I live in the northwest. Moxee washington. I grow a garden every year. The last 2 years I've been suffering from blossom end rot in my tomatoes, peppers and zuchini. I think I got the soil too hot with chicken manure. I'm planning on getting your fertilizer injector as I use drip hose. I have heavy clay soil and use gypsum pellets to combat the soil from hardening up. My question is what variety tomatoes are best for my area? I currently grow san marsano and other Roma styles as well as early girls. Just wondering if there are other varieties that would do better in my area. Thanks

I collect egg shells all year dry them out but when they're dry i grind them up in a blender with a few tums tablets then sprinkle them on every 3 weeks. Gypsum! Bingo...thanks dude. Never thought of that ingredient.

I have been using powdered Azomite an organic trace mineral of late. Are you familiar with this product?

Will the ez flow injector work on a low pressure system like 10 psi or less?

I don't think anything should be added to soil until you have it tested. Also, sometimes the problem is not enough water which will caused blossom end rot.

OAG used to pour vinegar over eggshells to break em down. Will vinegar hurt your plants?

I think this happened to my watermelon last year, they were going good and turned brown

Common mistake with Egg shells: You must grind it to fine powder ! not flakes . Cheers. Nice channel.

I have 4 60' rows of tomatoes, how much calcium nitrate and how much water should I use to make the mix to feed the injector?

I will attest to the fact that BER sprays don't work. I used some last year when an extreme heat wave hit and I couldn't keep enough water on the plants, thus BER set in. Not only did it not work, it killed the leaves like I had hit them with roundup!

Help , Last year I had beautiful plants they produced gorgeous blooms that flowered then fell off. Can you give me suggest where to start to prevent this ? The first ones made beautiful tomatoes ! The next 3-4 levels they fell off then the next couple levels made a couple weak tomatoes so I pulled them up

How do you handle to much watering from rainfall.

I grind my egg shells which works better n faster.love my maters.

I use powder milk as a source of calcium.

Do I understand correctly that you use the calcium nitrate, pelletized gypsum, along with a balanced fertilizer (3 products) every 2 weeks? (I understand better with written instructions)

I powder my eggshells after sterilizing the in the microwave. Costs me nothing. Works just fine.