Tomato tips and tricks

                     How to Grow Tomato's

Tomato Growing Tips

    What’s red, round, and perfect when sliced with a sprinkle of salt on it? None other than the Tomato, almost everyone loves tomatoes, whether they're fresh, or in ketchup form. One thing everyone with a garden agrees on is that tomatoes bought at the store, well, they just don't taste like a tomato. If you are new to growing tomatoes, or even if your an experienced gardener, continue reading, because there is lots to learn about the history of the tomato, their health benefits, and some tips and tricks to growing them.

                                    

    Where did the tomato originate from? Believe it or not, the tomato is native to the Ande mountain range in south America. There the Aztec people were the first to domesticate it, and use it as food. They called it the tomatl, which means plump fruit, and therefore the origin of the name tomato.

    The health benefits of tomatoes are endless, they say an apple a day keeps the doctor away, but im thinking a tomato a day would keep the doctor away. Packed with many antioxidants of which the main antioxidant is Lycopene. Lycopene is great all around, it lowers bad cholesterol and also lowers your blood pressure, therefore lowering your risk of heart disease. Tomatoes also have lutein and zeaxanthin in them, these substances help protect your eyes from the blue light put out by electronic devices.

    Now that we know the history and health benefits of the tomato we shall move on to they’re planting needs and some tricks to help get more tomato. Tomatoes need 8-10 hours of sun per day, on average it takes 60-100 day until the actual fruit reaches maturity. The soil that they are planted in needs to be slightly acidic, its PH should be around 6.5.

    There are three tips I have for growing healthy plants, and delicious tomatoes. The first is when you plant them, dig a deep enough hole so that the first leaf of the tomato plant is covered. The reason for this is that, the little hairs on the stalk of the plant are called trichomes these little hairs, if put under soil, will form into roots, giving your plant strength and enabling to absorb more nutrients.

    The second tip is prune the suckers off the plant, suckers are a growth of a new branch between the main stalk and a preexisting branch. Suckers are pruned off the plant because they sap energy from the plant, and if you did let them grow they would never produce fruit anyway. But wait! Don’t just throw away the pruned suckers, because if you have any extra room in your garden or a big pot, just take a couple of the clipping and bunch them together and stick ‘em in dirt and watch them grow.

    Lastly, when your tomato plants start to flower, sprinkle about a teaspoon of epsom salts on the ground around it. Epsom salts are also known as magnesium Sulfate (MgSO₄) supplies the plant with both magnesium and sulfur. It also helps the plant absorb nutrients from the ground, which helps them produce bigger sweeter tomatoes.

    Hopefully you learned many things from this article, from domestication in the high Andes, to tiny trichomes on the plant. Don’t forget the suckers too, and the little chemistry lesson you got on Magnesium Sulfate. you now know some big and little things, why the suckers suck and a little more biochemistry.

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