How to Grow Cherry Tomatoes

By eHow Home & Garden Editor

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Cherry tomatoes are delicious and easy to grow, and they can be grown in almost any climate.

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Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

Cherry Tomato Seedlings
Compost
Garden Stakes
Garden Trowels
Liquid Fertilizers
Shovels
Watering Cans

Step1

Buy cherry tomato seedlings from your local nursery for planting after the last frost date in spring. Look for heirloom varieties, or for fun, try the pearl variety. Two plants will produce plenty of fruit, unless you're feeding an army.

Step2

Choose a site with full sun. Work in plenty of compost or other organic matter if your soil is clay or sandy.

Step3

Dig a hole large enough to fit the base of the plant.

Step4

Remove the plant from its container. Using the tip of a garden trowel, dig gently into the root ball at the bottom of the plant and "rough it up" so that dirt falls out into your hole and the roots hang down.

Step5

Place the plant in the hole so the roots are in the hole and the base of the green plant is at ground level.

Step6

Fill the hole with soil and press down firmly on the soil surrounding the base of the plant.

Step7

Place a firm stake into the ground next to the base, and tie the plant loosely to the stake.

Step8

Water generously, but not so much that dirt flows out of the hole.

Step9

Water approximately once every two days. Fertilize every two weeks with liquid fertilizer.

Step10

Pick tomatoes when their color is glossy and even, and their texture midway between soft and firm.

Tips & Warnings

When you start to see yellow flowers sprouting, you've done it. You should have tomatoes coming off those sprouts within a week.

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Comments

Anonymous said

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on 11/22/2005 If you're fed up with paying for expensive cherry tomatoes that grow just as quickly as weeds; read on!

Don't bother buying seeds. Buy 1 punnet of tomatoes and eat them all except 2 or 3. Carefully squish a couple and extract the seeds on a piece of kitchen paper, cleaning off the slimy coating. Use tweezers to lay the seeds out in rows on a second piece of kitchen paper. Place the paper on a plate and add some tap water so the seeds are kept moist. Place the plate in a cupboard to avoid the light. Check the water every 24 hours as the seeds must always remain moist! After a few days the seeds will sprout. Make sure the temperature is warm enough - around 20/25c. When the seed has a small white root of about 1 to 2 centimeters, place it in a small pot of ordinary black earth 1 centimeter deep and cover loosely. After the seedling has the first leaf, extract carefully (with as much root as possible) and place in a large pot. I use 10 liter plastic containers with holes drilled underneath for drainage. These I get from the catering as they thrown away by restaurants - they are free! You can grow 3 to 5 plants in one container. Make sure you place a stick in the middle of the container to support the plants!

After the plant has reached a height of about 12 inches, fertilize once a week with a liquid bio mixture. 5 milliliters per 10 liters water. Try and keep it in the sun and out of the wind! If too windy, place indoors on a windowsill. I have 26 plants growing in 6 containers, 3 feet in length and half are flowering.

Tomato plants are poisonous, so no worries about bugs! Don't germinate all at the same time unless you want to harvest in one go! I do not have a garden, just a balcony. I also grow raspberries, they are easy like tomatoes.

Anonymous said

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on 11/22/2005 On one of the cooking shows I watch, they showed how to grow tomatoes in a bail of hay. A hole was cut in the hay and the tomato plant was put in the hole. They covered the plant with soil, and watered the whole bail. They placed the bail of hay in an area that received full sun.

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