Simple Guild: How To Care For Your Tomato Plants

12 months ago 48

Hi everyone, you are all welcome to today's guild on how to care for your tomato plant.Are you a gardener? A commercial tomato farmer? Or maybe you are simply interested in having a broad knowledge of tomatoes? if yes,...

Hi everyone, you are all welcome to today's guild on how to care for your tomato plant.

Are you a gardener? A commercial tomato farmer? Or maybe you are simply interested in having a broad knowledge of tomatoes? if yes, then stick around and read to the end because this article is for you.

Two weeks ago I publish an article on how to grow tomatoes at home. You can read it here.

A bunch of tomato fruits

All that been said, let's quickly delve into the business of the day.

Tomato being a very important and a highly consumed vegetable worldwide, comes with numerous challenges which includes climatic, pest, diseases, soil types and so on.

How you can better care for your tomato plants to minimize the effect of the above named challenges are what I will be talking about today.

How to care for your tomato plants in the nursery

The nursery is the place where your tomato plants are raised from seeds.�

As a beginner you may not have the much needed knowledge to raise your tomato plants from seeds, but sometimes you (a beginner) might still be able to raise your plants from seeds by doing a few research.

My article on how to grow tomatoes at home also have a sneak pick guide on raising tomatoes in the nursery.

Now let's talk about how you can actually care for your tomatoes in the nursery

If you are raising your tomato plants in the open, ensure that you provide a good shade for them. Do not make the mistake of actually covering the the top of the beds where you are raising your plants directly with whatever you are using as a shade, instead provide a raised shade to avoid you suffocating the plants when they start growing up.Water the plants regularly and consistently. Also avoid over or under watering which may results to blossom end rot. just try to water consistently and avoid making up for the watering you failed to carry out on the previous day.Additionally, keep your nursery free from weeds which may harbour pest and diseases that can affect your plants.

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How to care for your tomato plants during transplanting

immediately after nursery practices, the next is transplanting.�

Transplanting is the process of taking your plants from the nursery to the field. It is done when the tomato plants have grown up to a certain stage (ideally when they have a maximum of 3 - 4 leaves or about 4 weeks after planting)

Below lyes how you can care for your plants during the process of transplanting.

Always transplant with a ball of earth (that is, a slight heap of soil attached to the roots of the plant).while planting on the field ensure that the plant goes deep into the soil beyond the root system. Doing this will ensure that the plant easily survive and grows other roots.If you also want to stake your tomato plants (which is a good practice), ensure that you �erect the stakes during the course of transplanting. Erecting your stakes days after transplanting may cause injuries to already developing roots which may �result to blossom end rot or tomato rot.

How to care for your tomato plants while in the field

The field in this case is the last place where your tomatoes are raised to maturity.

In this stage your plants are more susceptible to diseases outbreak as compare to when they are in the nursery because you can easily care effectively for them in the nursery than on the field.

You may also want to read bacterial wilt of tomato plants.

Below are some practices that you may need to carry out on the field in other to ensure that they are properly taken care of.

Always ensure that you carryout staking. Staking helps to carry the plant(s) off the ground and as such prevent the plant from easily contracting diseases.Pinch or cut out the secondary growths (that is, any other growth aside the main stem) of the tomato plant. This will give room for the tomato plant to develop only one main stem and channels most of its power into fruit production.Lastly, always water your tomato plants regularly in the morning or evening when the sun must have gone down.

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