A coworker gave me this tomato plant they’ve been growing. How do I take care of it?
A coworker gave me this tomato plant they’ve been growing. How do I take care of it?
by mapletree63
3 Comments
ihave3greenthumbs
>they’ve been ‘growing’ :))
use the largest container you have, at least 5 gallon. soil with a lot of organic matter and well drained, until flowering go with the highest nitrogen fertilizer you can get, then switch to p and k more. don’t let soil get too dry, the plant needs the most sun you can offer it.
prune suckers off, there are a lot of info on the internet about it.
don’t go super crazy on it with caring, they grow well on their own as well, but will yeald more fruits if taken care of.
and offer some kind of support, tomato cage, trellies, anything to help it stay straight.
carlovmon
It’s going to need a larger pot very soon and it looks like the leaves were burned likely due to over fertilization. A lot of folks over fertilize their vegetables. All you really need is good dirt with lots of organic material, maybe a little fertilizer but small seedlings will die if over fertilized. Be sure to put it in spot that gets 6 to 8 hours of direct sunlight. Another mistake folks make is they over water their tomatoes. Tomatoes in particular like to search a little bit for their water. Be sure to only water when the soil is dry about 1 in down. Good luck!
Davekinney0u812
If you can’t plant this outside, I’d suggest you potup to a 5gal pail that allows drainage as you don’t want water pooling causing root rot.
If it is an indeterminate variety it keeps growing until it dies off and can 8′ tall and put out a whack of side shoot (suckers). It would need support for both growing tall as well as wide. I use a very tall stake and tie off the main stem and branches to it. As for pruning, remove as many suckers as you can’t provide support for.
If it’s determinate (and hopefully it is as they are better suited to container growing), it will grow 4ish’ tall and won’t produce suckers – so no pruning needed. It would still need support for the main stem though.
You’ll be able to tell soon and the suckers will be the clue. They grow vigorously off the main stem at a leaf junction.
Tomatoes are heavy feeders so I suggest a soluble fertilizer every couple of weeks.
Check out YT for pruning & container growing as there are a ton of vids on the topic.
3 Comments
>they’ve been ‘growing’ :))
use the largest container you have, at least 5 gallon. soil with a lot of organic matter and well drained, until flowering go with the highest nitrogen fertilizer you can get, then switch to p and k more.
don’t let soil get too dry, the plant needs the most sun you can offer it.
prune suckers off, there are a lot of info on the internet about it.
don’t go super crazy on it with caring, they grow well on their own as well, but will yeald more fruits if taken care of.
and offer some kind of support, tomato cage, trellies, anything to help it stay straight.
It’s going to need a larger pot very soon and it looks like the leaves were burned likely due to over fertilization. A lot of folks over fertilize their vegetables. All you really need is good dirt with lots of organic material, maybe a little fertilizer but small seedlings will die if over fertilized. Be sure to put it in spot that gets 6 to 8 hours of direct sunlight. Another mistake folks make is they over water their tomatoes. Tomatoes in particular like to search a little bit for their water. Be sure to only water when the soil is dry about 1 in down. Good luck!
If you can’t plant this outside, I’d suggest you potup to a 5gal pail that allows drainage as you don’t want water pooling causing root rot.
If it is an indeterminate variety it keeps growing until it dies off and can 8′ tall and put out a whack of side shoot (suckers). It would need support for both growing tall as well as wide. I use a very tall stake and tie off the main stem and branches to it. As for pruning, remove as many suckers as you can’t provide support for.
If it’s determinate (and hopefully it is as they are better suited to container growing), it will grow 4ish’ tall and won’t produce suckers – so no pruning needed. It would still need support for the main stem though.
You’ll be able to tell soon and the suckers will be the clue. They grow vigorously off the main stem at a leaf junction.
Tomatoes are heavy feeders so I suggest a soluble fertilizer every couple of weeks.
Check out YT for pruning & container growing as there are a ton of vids on the topic.