Tomatoes are herbaceous plants that are easiest to grow and they are largely seen growing abundantly in most home gardens. For the reasons that they are very popular, useful and nothing can beat the taste of a fresh grown home tomato. This article will reveal some salient information on simple tomato growing tips. And if you need to know about these tips, then read this. There are a lot of things you can do to succeed in your tomato gardening and here are some helpful tips you can try to achieve best tasting tomatoes from your own garden.

When you are setting up your tomato bed, try adding horticultural corn meal at about two pounds for every 10 by 10 foot area. Adding horticultural corn meal will make the soil healthy as well as your tomato plant can be protected against fungal diseases.

You can also add two pounds of dried molasses for every 100 sq. feet of bed soil to minimize fungi from attacking, as well as to add up more nutrients in the soil. Furthermore, planting marigold together with your tomatoes does not only add up to the appearance but it will aid in reducing the number of harmful nematodes in the soil. Aside from marigold, you can also plant some chives and basil around your tomatoes to get rid of insects.

Planting other plants together with tomatoes is one best tomato growing tips but not all plant can be. Avoid planting potatoes near your tomatoes because potatoes can bring bacterial wilt. If your tomatoes need extra support, you can tie them up and it is advisable to cut the hose into 2 inches wide strips to prevent the stems from pinching when you tie them.

Furthermore, have your tomato garden watered early in the morning. And when you do watering, avoid pouring water from the top because tomatoes are not that strong. The best water system is the drip irrigation and if you are unlucky enough to have one, you can re-use some old cans by punching some holes in the side. Bury the old cans until it reaches their necks closer to your tomatoes, and slowly pour water into the cans so the water will be slowly gives off into the soil.

When you aren’t aware of the best harvest time, wait until the last possible time to harvest your tomatoes to give them ample time to ripen on the vine. But if you can’t wait, place them in a paper bag after harvesting and store them in a dark cool place. Sunlight is not needed in the ripening of tomatoes. And lastly, select healthy tomato seeds in starting your garden and find the best planting season and spot. Take your time in your tomato gardening and be guided with this simple tomato growing tips.

Linda H. Stephens is a well-experienced gardener who discovered a lot of secrets on how to grow big, juicy, and quality tomatoes and helped other people through specific <a href=”http://www.supertomatogrowingsecrets.com/tomato-growing-tips/”>tomato growing tips</a>. She compiled all her knowledge about growing quality tomatoes in her book “SUPER Growing Secrets: The Perfect Guide To Growing Quality Tomatoes” for other people’s benefit. To learn more about growing quality tomatoes, visit her website <a href=”http://www.supertomatogrowingsecrets.com/”>http://www.supertomatogrowingsecrets.com</a>.

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• Growing Tomatoes Information That You Need To Know (backyardgardeningtips.com)

The 2009 gardening season taught us a lot of helpful things we will apply in our 2010 garden for a better garden. We thought it would be helpful to you, the new gardener, while helping ourselves to remember for next year.

Jenny and I are really enjoying gardening in our backyard garden. Just a few short years ago we would never have called ourselves gardeners but it tends to grow on you over time.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying we are seasoned gardeners, not by any stretch of the imagination but we have learned a lot of helpful gardening tips from gardening friends.

We have also learned a considerable amount from online searches using my favorite search engine, Google, and we especially love Youtube for great gardening videos. I learn so much faster watching videos than I do reading.

So here are our top 5 gardening tips for newbies:

Gardening Tip #1 : Keep A Gardening Journal

Tracking what works for you and what others teach you is vital to having gardening success sooner. That is where a gardening journal will come in very handy.

Being able to look back to previous years to see what worked and didn’t work is invaluable. It took me three years before I realized I should have started a gardening journal.

For us, not having a gardening journal, wasn’t so bad because I blogged about everything we did, so I do have a record of it by date.

Use you journal to track the time you plant seeds, how you prepared the ground before planting. The same for plants you purchase that you aren’t growing from seed. You need to remember what you did that was successful or not so successful.

So start a gardening journal TODAY.

Gardening Tip #2 : Read The Labels

I’m a guy and known for throwing about the instructions without reading them. Well I am in my mid 50s now and starting to learn that it’s better to read the labels. I just don’t tell anyone.

Seriously, reading the lable and either keeping it or writing it up in your journal will save you time, money and cut down on your stress in the garden.

If a label says full sun and you ignore it and plant it in the shade you maybe scratching your head a month down the road wondering why it’s not doing so well. Is it the watering, what could it be?

Maybe that’s why we didn’t get any zuchinni this year. Hmmmm, better write that down.

So be sure to read the label and planting instructions.

Gardening Tip #3 : Support Your Garden Plants

I made a bit of gardening mess on our first year. I staked up beans, peas, tomatoes, well just about everything but did a poor job and most things kind of out grew the stakes and slowly fell into the rest of the garden.

Next year we are using at least 1 inch stakes instead of the little bamboo stakes I bought. They might work for our indoor plants but outside in the wind and weather they didn’t hold up very well.

So support your garden so it grows up healthy and strong, literally.

Gardening Tip #4 : Get The Right Garden Tools

Tools will either help or hinder your progress.

Example: We didn’t bother with a wheel barrel for the first couple of years, until I realized I was not doing as much as I could because of my energy level. I was wasting most of the little energy I have by hauling things back and forth to and from the garden shed.

A wheel barrel is a great investment.

Another indispensible tool would be my garden gloves. Yeah you read it correctly. An item that costs about 2 bucks saved my tender little hands so that I could continue to work longer.

As a blogger and web designer I don’t do much more than type using my hands so they aren’t very tough. Plus it’s a lot nicer to use gloves while digging in the dirt. I may have to stop and work on a client’s site, like I did this morning.

I don’t have to waste precious time cleaning my hands so I can use my keyboard. Once I was done I was right back out in the garden, wearing my gloves.

Gardening Tip #5 : Share What You Grow

We grew tomatoes this year, again, but more. We ended up with so many tomatoes that I was able to stew some for some of my great garden recipes and enough to share with friends and family.

We don’t grow everything but other friends grow things we don’t so when we share with them it’s more of a barter I think as they give us from what they grow that we don’t and we do the same.

By the way our garden went so well this year that we are tripling the size for next year so we can grow more and maybe even start canning some things to enjoy through the winter. That brings back memories of growing up on the farm.

We have been blessed with so many tomatoes this year that we had more than we could use at one time and we can only give away so many. That is when I decided I would try stewing my own tomatoes for some soup and other dishes I prepare using tomatoes.

Tomatoes are probably the veggie we consume the most of. I am sure I use at least a can of tomatoes a day between lunches and dinners.

Stewing Tomatoes

I cut my tomatoes into equal sizes and then put them in a pot with a bit of water to get them started and set it to boil. They don’t take long and are so tasty. But…

… I have a hard time with tomatoe peels in my stewed tomatoes. I just never seem to be able to chew them up and swallow them like I can do with a raw tomato.

Peeling My Tomatoes

That is when I decided to peel my tomatoes before I stew them today.

I plunged them into boiling water for about 15 seconds. I did the first couple at about 25 seconds and it just became to mushy to peel.

At 15 seconds the pulp just under the skin was just soft enough to easily peel it with just my fingers. The cross or X I carved in the end of each tomato made the peeling a piece of cake.

It’s always a thrill when I see the first fruit or veggie of the season and this year is our first backyard vegetable garden so we are excited about every little thing.

Today was no different when I saw the first tomato forming on one of our tomato plants. It was one that we had in a container but thought it would do better in the ground in our backyard garden.

It’s about 3 feet high now and was kind of top heavy so we put it in a cage and tried to give it some support. I wasn’t 100% how close to 3 feet it was so I just went back out and measured. It’s almost exactly 3 feet tall, great guess.

All my other tomatoes are still only just over a foot high but then again all my tomato plants are different varieties so I am not quite sure what to expect.

Here is a picture of my first little tomato that’s started. Don’t laugh, it’s kind of hard to see but it’s there.

I probably would have had more by this point but I didn’t notice that one of the branches was not in the cage and when I tried to slowly bend it thinking it would bend enough for me to put it inside the cage I broke it right off.

I lost about a foot. I think I swore out loud so if you heard me I do apologize for that.

We have 5 varieties of tomatoes this year and I put them all in the ground rather than in containers. We did well with containers last year but because we started our first garden this year I wanted the tomatoes in the garden.

Image via WikipediaI decided to have a go at growing tomatoes in pots this year and have been very pleased with them. I also have my beloved plot with tomatoes growing in the ground. Over thirty years I have successfully grown tomatoes in my garden plot. But growing my tomatoes in containers is anew departure for me.

The comparison between the pot grown tomato and those in the ground.I grew 2 varieties this year moneymaker and an Italian cherry tomato variety. These seeds came with a vegetable magazine. I sowed the seeds in March 2008 and grew them on in my conservatory in 6 inch pots. I always have far to many plants and ended up giving most of them away to friends. Once the risk of frost had gone I set them out in the garder and in my containers and within a month I was picking tomatoes. As I speak in late august I still have many fruits to pick so it has been a good year. I did notice 2 slight differences between the containers grown tomatoes and those in the ground.

Firstly the moneymaker tomatoes were slightly smaller than the ones grown on my plot.

Secondly there were not quite as many cherry tomatoes in the containers.

Other than that the results were very similar. You may not know that the taste of home grown tomatoes is far superior to shop ones. For the container grown tomatoes

I did treat them differently and with a bit more care.

1. Make sure you put tomato plants in a really big pot.

I like the root systems to have plenty of room and not become pot bound. Your tomatoes need a big pot of at least 10 inches in diameter to have enough room for the roots. I use standard clay terracotta pots but any wide and deep container will work fine.

1. Water your tomatoes even if it rains.

We have had a dreadful summer in the UK this year and it has rained constantly. I still found that the pot grown tomato plants were wilting a bit if I didn’t check them for watering. The plants grown in the ground do not need this. The pot is protected by the leaves of the tomato plant and the water cannot get through to it. Very little water gets to the root of the plants. So I made sure to check them often.

1. Be ruthless with pinching out side shoots on the tomato plants.

I only pinch out once or twice a season when growing tomatoes in the ground because they seem to do fine. I have learned this through trial and error. The moneymaker tomato plants in the pots were regularly pinched out throughout the season to make sure that I had a good large crop. With cherry tomatoes there is no need to pinch them out as they provide plenty of fruit naturally. You can leave them alone safe in the knowledge that with regular watering they will give a good harvest.

1. Remove excess foliage once you have the tomato fruits.

I have always done this to tomatoes and do not know where I picked this tip up. Once you have all the tomatoes set on the plant remove any leaves that are hiding the fruit from the sun. Some people pick their tomatoes when green and ripen them under glass but I like them to ripen on the vine. Removing the leaves also gives you slightly bigger tomatoes.

If you have missed this tomato season then I encourage you to plan ahead for your tomato growing in 2009. Grow some in pots and containers as well as in the ground. They are a lot of fun and be grown on any sunny spot you have.