Tomato Growing Tips

Cherry tomatoes are a favorite of many gardeners. Cherry tomatoes have a few advantages over some of the larger tomato varieties that make them a must have in many tomato gardens. Here's a few tips on how to grow cherry tomatoes.

One thing to note is that most cherry tomato varieties are indeterminate tomatoes, which means that the vine will keep growing larger as time goes on. This is a good thing from the standpoint of extending the harvest, but it also means that cherry tomatoes are not a particularly good choice for use in a hanging tomato planter. Many gardeners make the mistake of thinking that small tomatoes means a small plant.

In some areas with a long summer, it's not uncommon for these tomato plants to grow to be 6 to 8 feet tall, and to sprawl out several feet. Unlike smaller varieties like Celebrity tomatoes, you will want to use a large tomato cage or even a tomato trellis with these plants.

One other thing to note is that in general, the smaller the tomato variety, the hotter the temperatures that it will tolerate for both pollination and growing to full size. This makes cherry tomatoes a great choice for use the hotter areas like Texas and the rest of the Southwestern states. For some areas the fact that they will pollinate sooner, and longer make them the only real choice for gardeners looking to grow tomatoes. Because of their small size, they don't develop blossom end rot as easily either, so if your watering schedule is irregular they can be a little more tolerant.



Cherry tomatoes are an heirloom tomato, which implies that they will grow true from seeds. But there are a number of hybrids that grow as cherry tomato plants that are quite popular. In fact, growing the Sweet 100 tomatoes ranks up with growing Sugar Snap peas as the most popular crops in the garden, and ones that may never make it into the house. The Sweet 100 or Sweet One Million varieties will give a slightly smaller fruit that the heirloom cherry tomatoes. Another popular cherry size tomatoes are grape tomatoes. These aren't as sweet, but can be found in some other colors, some with a purple hue to them.

Growing cherry tomatoes is otherwise much like growing other tomatoes. You can start them from seeds indoors, or buy transplants at the nursery. Plant after the threat of a frost has past. Be sure to plant in full sun, they need 6-8 hours of sun a day at a minimum.

Dig a generous hole, and put the plant in up to it's first set of true leave, to help start a robust root system. Tomatoes are heavy feeders, and cherry tomatoes tend to grow longer than other varieties, so work in some slow release tomato fertilizer, and you will want to fertilize your tomatoes every 2-3 weeks during the growing season as well. Be sure to stake or cage these tomatoes, they will quickly get out of hand otherwise.

Water your tomatoes with about 1 inch of water a week. You'll know when to pick these, they will get to a glossy red color.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 15th, 2009 at 11:06 am and is filed under Tomato Gardening Tips. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will be moderated but will appear as soon as humanly possible.