I'm in the Netherlands zone 8B. just planted my plants out today in the garden. They were about 2ft high so the the timing was pretty perfect. Had a beautiful 72 degrees day today !
Very nice! I'm surprised it's that warm for you this early in the season? I know your lows aren't too severe for your latitude, but I thought you were highs were lower. That's the *perfect* temp. We'll be roasting in the heat shortly, so trying to enjoy the nice April weather while it lasts.
@@TheMillennialGardener You are quite right. However when you look at the last 100 years or so, things are moving and frosts are delayed, if not completely gone in some years. Officially speaking you could have a frost here till May 15th (ice saints translated literally), however it is really rare anymore. So all the way up till may I get 60-65 during the day and 40-45 at night, so that is definitely great. Can't wait for the great harvest. Definitely used a lot of your tips and tricks! Thank you and good luck to you.
Zone 8b here on the Mississippi Gulf Coast also, and yeah, we will be roasting soon. We usually already have more humidity than what we've had and that is good for my tomatoes too. I've got 24 plants set out, tallest nearing 3 ft, and several very small baby tomatoes already! Really hoping they have a great season. I started them all from seed in early February. Definitely good advice in this video, all things that every tomato gardener should do, for sure! By mid season, my tomato plants are missing the bottom third of their foliage, well at least the indeterminate varieties are lol.
@@veronica_._._._ Well it depends a lot on when you first started sowing. I think I started sowing my Tomatoes/Peppers around end of January. You still have plenty of time!
I did these 3 steps last year, using a cattle panel, twine from wheat straw, the clips, trimmed all my lower branches and mulched wind he plants. Worked like a charm, I planted 10 plants in a 8x10 space and didn’t lose a plant. They fruited until early September. Keeping them trimmed and held up allowed more air to flow over them, drying leaves and staying clean. Good Tips, thanks
Thanks for watching! I don't root tomatoes due to the disease problems. They're far too prone to disease here, so I only start them from seed so I begin with a clean plant. If you're in a place where disease isn't an issue, you may have success doing so.
If you found this video helpful, please “Like” and share it to help increase its reach! Thanks for watching 😊TIMESTAMPS for convenience: 0:00 3 Tips For Growing Tomato Plants After Planting 1:22 Tip #1: Growing Tomatoes Vertically 3:06 Tip #2: Pruning Tomatoes 4:33 Tip #3: Adding Compost And Mulch 7:52 Adventures With Dale
Ty for the video! I live in a windy area, tomatoes, they must be tied down here, period. I found the string does some good but..., The cattle panel for windy areas will do better for the main stem. It will tear the leaves, but they survive without issues. So far it’s handled well, ( I lost a few tomatoes with the string, btw, the string is AWSOME for cucumbers to lead them to the trellis, for some odd reason, the main stem thickens in the area of the string. I have no clue why this is, but it’s uniform on all my cucumber plants and that’s the only thing they have in common, last year! If you know why, please, I need education on this! This year I am using bamboo. It’s all I have to use).
this was helpful, I thought colored mulch would be bad for organic gardening. I'm still wondering though, do we have to use exclusively 'organic mulch'? I've heard it's just another why to make more 💰 off of organic gardeners. I don't mean to be weird about it but I have health issues now that I was hoping by cleaning up my food, I might get some relief...😕... I've all but cut out dining out. What I buy at the grocery, on a bad day, I'm 80% organic, on a good day I'm 100%...so far, it's not helped, but I could be feeling worse maybe? Anyway, it's been a little over a year that I've been so diligent, not giving up yet!!! Sorry, a little long winded, just hoping to maybe get some advice from anyone else with fibromyalgia and fast developing arthritis that has NO cure or medicinal relief. Thx for listening and any advice 🤝👩🏼🦳🙏
@@TheMillennialGardener I hope your plants made it! Your tomatoes were looking lovely. Totally agree with you on the weather. So strange all over the country.
I really needed to know this information. Just transplanted my tomatoe plants into the ground and gave it a good watering but noticed all the leaves splashed with soil. I tried to “rinse” the soil off the best I could but didnt know how to water in the future without this happening again. Mulch! Bingo. And thanks for the tip about snipping off any leaves touching the soil. I learn so much from u and greatly appreciate it.
I tended the family vegetable garden for years. The tomato plants were left to rest on the griound to the point that the stems rooted. The plants were productive & disease free & we had plenty for canning & eating fresh.
Your plants look great ~ blossoms already, wow! Thanks for the specific manure & mulching tip. Getting ready to set my Better Boys, Early Girls & Super Sweet cherry tomato plants now. Our past few night's 40° temps have me a little worried but it looks like we're in the clear going forward. (Started pinching off low tomato branches last year & it did help with black spot, curl & rot. The only thing I didn't like was losing some fruit production ~ goodbye lowly little flower, sniff... 🍃😣 Lol.)
Don't fear 40's. My last two nights were 39.7 and 44.2. The tomatoes didn't care at all. It bounces back to 68-70 degrees during the day, and the next week is all between 75-82. They are *loving* the temps. Brief dips into the 40's won't bother a tomato plant at all. It's prolonged temps - when the highs are in the 40's - that will make a tomato plant ill, because they will develop nutrient deficiencies at those temperatures. Their metabolic rate slows so much that they fail to draw nutrients from the soil, so that's why they turn yellow or purple in those cold temps. But that's when we're talking highs. Dips into the 40's at night are no sweat as long as they day warms back up into the 60's+.
@@TheMillennialGardener Thank you for the excellent information! Very relieved. And learning a lot watching your videos. Tomatoes (or maybe citrus 🤔) appear to be the apple of your eye! 🍅😁🍎
I am in 7a (Asheville) and we even had a few nights that went down to the low 30s. My tomatoes did fine they are mulched and I put a bucket on top of the plants those nights.
@@ericpatterson8354 Good to know, thanks :) I live on the NC coast so temps are a little milder, about 10°. But when I lived inland, often lost plants to late unexpected frosts. So now I'm super cautious.
Love all your contents. Thank you for educating us and sharing your passion. I have a question about mulching. Since you recommend a thick layer of mulch to cover the soil, how do I apply granule fertizer next time it's due? And when I feed the plant liquid fertilizer won't the mulch absorb most of the liquid fertilizer and end up wasting the nutrients? I am a new gardener and have so much to learn. Thank you so much.
Dale always gets spoiled rotten. He just had chicken gizzards and calf liver with carrots and kale. Now, he gets chicken with white rice and peas. Lucky guy eats better than me! 🐶
One has got to trim back those lower leaf branches. The plant no longer needs them and they will turn yellow and brown. Give yourself between 5 to 7 inches off the stem. Bury the stem deeper if possible. It will sprout more roots if it is under 20" tall. You should have a plant that is nearly 5 feet or more tall by mid August, loaded with ripening fruits and many green fruits. Time to make a batch of FGTs, if you are a fan of good stuff to eat. My frau is a Minnesota German and won't even try them. Anyway, give the plants a shot of a normal strength Calcium Nitrate or garden gypsum in late July to prevent a lot of Blossom End Rot (BER). You may see some at the upper most fruits, but by now, you should be eating a lot of fruits that have made your gardening endeavors pay off. Cheers, a tom grower for many years, Bob
Thanks for the informative video! Given it's tomato planting season, this is very helpful! I'm going to thumbs up and subscribe to support your channel!
Hello, thanks for your wonderful video. I have a question can I use after I put compost and mulch at the base of the plant a fertilizer, such as Expert Gardener Tomato & Vegetable Garden Plant Food Fertilizer? My soil is very poor, I am in my first year of gardening and I don't know how to prepare the soil before! I simply dug and planted directly without putting compost or anything else at the base of the plant. I have two weeks since I planted the seedlings of tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and zucchini but they do not grow, their growth stagnates and I do not know what to do! Please help me with some advice! Thank you in advance!
Learned few years ago removing lower Tomato leaves reduces chances having Blight. Keeping up off the ground stops Ant traveling. I trim leaves because during a Thunderstorm rain water with bouncing up.
If you put the twine in the planting hole then plant out the tomato plant on top of the wine it secures the twine nice and tight. To secure the twine with the first tomato clip may stress the plant when the wind blows. Also, with the twine well secured in the ground you can 'weave' the plant around the twine and omit the clip.
I use raw organic milk on my plants for anything that has blossoms. I use cedar mulch but the celery doesn’t like it much. But it may be because I moved the pot it is in and it gets a bit more sun. Thank You for the tips.
Hi. Your videos are excellent! So much good information to help with growing tomatoes! I had a problem with my CONTAINER tomatoes last year in the later part of summer that I am looking for advice on addressing this year to avoid that problem. We live in Richmond, Va. July - mid September is HOT, humid and can be dry! I had planted Better Boy tomato plants in 15 gallon containers on my back deck. In late August I had many green tomatoes on plants that measured over 8 feet tall. None of these green tomatoes would turn red! They stayed green on the vine until I finally had had enough in early October and disposed of the plants. Very frustrating! I tried consistent watering and did regular fertilizing, calcium and magnesium supplements. They were getting at least 6 hours of sunshine. Any idea why these green tomatoes would not ripen? Thank you for responding!
We bring them green inside. We bring ours inside at the end of the season every year and they ripen. It takes a bit of time, but we'll have tomatoes lasting till December. I just put them in the biggest bowl I have, usually a stainless steel one or keep them in a cardboard box on the kitchen table till the ripen. No need to fuss over them.
If you are starting a new raised bed for tomatoes what kind of dirt or soil should I use ? I live in NC and I have red clay and I’m building a 32’x16’ bed. Hope you can help
@@nancyckp why failure? In containers you have to be more careful with watering, use tomato tone and mulching over it to reduce deficiencies, just that easy
You might remember I was the one who planted tomatoes at the end of March under cut jugs. You told me to _'be vigilant. Watching the weather closely'._ You were right! We got 5 inches of snow on April 11th, but thankfully all my plants survived. Now I'm 99% sure our temps won't drop below the mid to low 40's, but there is a lot of rain in the forecast. *QUESTION:* Do you think I should take these three steps now, or give the 12 plants another week under the jugs? Half are indeterminate in the ground, and half are determinate in 10 gallon grow bags. Thanks in advance.
I feel your pain. It's April 20th, and we got to 39.7 degrees last night. There was a frost advisory 10 miles to my north on the bordering county. That is *insane.* Our 90% frost date was 2 weeks ago, and our average frost (50% date) was a full month ago. These cold outbreaks are getting later and later - last year, Raleigh got frosted in MAY! It's just crazy. Eventually, you have to pull the trigger on planting and just be vigilant. I don't know when your frost dates are, so I can't really say what you should do. If the plants are STILL fitting under the jugs, then you lose nothing by keeping them on. In fact, you'll just be speeding up their growth, because they will warm up extra during the day and you'll be ahead of schedule. If your plants are outgrowing the jugs and you must remove them, I always recommend having a bunch of 5 gallon buckets on hand to throw over them. 5 gallon buckets are the perfect protection for late frost with easy clean-up.
@@TheMillennialGardener April 5th is our last frost date, but like you? I'm not sure how much we can count on those dates these days. Global warming? Yeah. Right. lol Thanks!
Good video ! Unrelated question on my Chicago Hardy Fig tree. This will be its second leaf here in Mass zone 6A it is not budding so far and the coldest it got here this winter was 5 degrees F. I'm hoping the roots will send up another shoot the old shoot is there but looks to be dead. Cambium layer is brown same color as the bark. If it does send up a new shoot will that be in June or July ? Thanks in advance !
Figs aren’t hardy to a particular temperature. Their hardiness depends strictly on how dormant they were when the cold hit. If your cambium is brown, it likely has died back to the ground. The roots are almost certainly alive. If you are confident the cold is over, I suggest cutting off the old wood and removing any mulch layer entirely. You want the ground and roots to heat up ASAP. When the roots send new growth will depend on how warm the soil temps are, and mulched soil will warm up more slowly. After you see new growth coming up from the ground, add the mulch layer back.
@@TheMillennialGardener I have a good 6" of wood chip mulch on it since last summer. I will remove all of that to warm up the soil.it was 30 degrees F. this morning and maybe again tomorrow morning. Perhaps new growth in a month or two from now ? Thank You!
Thanks for tips, great advice. Will this help prevent blossom end rot? Any further advice on avoiding the plague of blossom end rot I experienced last year?
Blossom end rot is caused by a calcium deficiency. However, the calcium deficiency is usually caused by uneven watering practices and not an actual deficiency of calcium in the soil. Calcium is taken into the plant via transpiration (in the water), so when you have uneven soil moisture, the plants fail to uptake calcium properly, and you get blossom end rot. Adding a thick layer of compost and mulch *will* help prevent blossom end rot, because the soil will be less prone to evaporation and your plants will be less prone to drying out (and therefore failing to uptake calcium). I recommend placing a couple tablespoons of bone meal and a balanced organic fertilizer, like a 5-5-5 or similar, and work it into the top inch of the soil, then place your compost and mulch layer. That bone meal and organic fertilizer will break down over the next month, providing calcium, and the compost and mulch layer will keep the water levels even. I recommend dusting the soil with bone meal every 2-3 weeks.
Enjoy your videos. Question: I've heard and read in various places not to use pine mulch, as it will deplete the nitrogen in the soil as it composts. Have you had any issue with this? Pine mulch is something easily available to me so I'd like to use it if I can.
From my experience, any type of organic mulch only should affect the top layer of the soil and yes, it will deplete nitrogen from that top layer as it breaks down, however that's the case with any other type of organic mulch like woodchips or straw. As long as you are not mixing your mulch into the soil, you should be ok. Do check for pH level.
This way is vastly superior. Cages are the worst way to support a tomato, but stakes aren't too far behind. Trellising provides much better support, airflow and flexibility. After messing around with stakes for years, I'd never go back.
Thanks for the tips. I have access to non composted saw dust (although I am composting some now). Do you see any issues with using raw saw dust as the mulch layer around my tomatoes?
Not at all as long as it is a *natural* untreated wood. While there are no problems using modern MCA pressure treated wood to build your garden beds, you do not want pressure treated wood sawdust used. The idea of the mulch layer is to decay, and pressure treated wood not only won't decay, but you don't want your soil microbiome to try and consume treated wood. If it is 100% natural, untreated wood, that's fine. If you are unsure if it is treated or untreated wood, or if it's just a big mix of everything together, I would not use it. Only source 100% natural untreated sawdust. Many people use the natural cedar wood chips they sell at places like Walmart for hamster cages, etc. as mulch.
Hey, i am trying the string trellis for the first time this year and it's going really well so far. One question i had is if you cut off the lower branches when you unravel the string to start laying them down on the ground. Thanks!
A tomato sucker is a small shoot that grows out of the joint where a branch on the tomato plant meets a stem. I think you may have called a branch a sucker.
I used black mulch after felt to keep in mosture but not my 🍅 plants are light green and all blooms starting to look like they got little black tips around tips inside them before they ever open should I remove the black mulch
An old gardener once told me to take off all leaves up until one leaf below first flower. Suckers become branches. Everyday I go over my plants and remove suckers. If I miss one and it has already become large I leave it. Indeterminate sorts should be grown with one stem. Determinate sorts with two.
A deer ate the top off one of my yellow pear tomato plants. It hasn't even started fruiting yet. Should I just pull it up and throw it out or is there some way to save it?
Straw may be the BEST mulch for gardens provided it is free from herbicides and weeds. If it is rich in herbicides, it can injure young plants, so keep that in mind.
Yes. Mulch regulates soil moisture, lessens splashing of the soil onto the plants (which limits disease spread), protects the roots from UV rays and adds organic matter to soil. All climates and locations should use mulch.
So, early blossoms, leave or remove? My plants are still quite small, about a foot/30cm tall...it's been a cool rainy spring. However, several of the plants have blossoms already, and I'm not sure what the best approach is.
Organic fertilizers are inert out of the bag. They have to decompose to be usable by plants. You need to apply them by either scratching them into the soil an inch or two or covering them with compost and mulch so they break down. Throwing them on top of mulch or sprinkling them on top of the soil without working them in will decrease their potency.
How do you make sure that your cow manure does not contain Grazon (R) herbicide that can ruin a garden for years? It does not break down for up to 5 years and passes right through the cow that grazed on a pasture where it was sprayed or where the feedlot cow is fed that grass.
@@goodmeasure777 Many plants fertilized with manure where commercial farmers use this herbicide DIE after the manure is applied. Others survive but grow gnarled and won't produce tomatoes, peppers or anything else. It is not something people use on their lawns. It is used in fields where grass hay is commercially grown or by large cattle operations that grow grass for their feed lot cattle and don't want any other plants coming up except GRASS. Normally, in hay operations, there will be some level of competing plants. Cattle do fine as long as there is 80% grass and 20% other plants. Sheep like 50:50 grass and other plants. Goats like 80% weeds and 20% grass. This particular herbicide is too often in even expensive potting soil.
@@TheMillennialGardener this crazy weather. Thank you so much for making these videos. I'm sorta close to you in Tidewater which is an additional reason I subscribed to your channel. Thanks again for your hard work.
You will actually have to water less overall, because the compost and mulch layer will retain moisture better. Your tomatoes will grow surface roots in the compost and mulch layers overtime.
I've got determinate in pots and 3 indeterminate plants in grow bags in a mini greenhouse, leaving the front door open during the day. I'm very confused with feeding. Nothing is giving me a clear answer on feeding. On a bottle of Tomorite liquid feed it says (for grow bags) "Use 4.5 litres per bag. Outdoors, feed once a week, in greenhouse increase to twice a week when second truss has set." What does "set" mean? Is it when it's showing flowers? When it's showing tomatoes forming? When all the flowers have gone and it's only forming mini tomatoes? As for the determinate dwarf - no idea how often I've got to feed these as can't find any information anywhere. It's mainly the "set" bit that's lost me completely, this is my first year growing tomatoes. I'm in the UK, thanks :)
