BROWSE HOW TOs

How to Grow Organic Heirloom Tomatoes

By eHow Home & Garden Editor

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When growing organic heirloom tomatoes, you can use natural soils, leaves and other elements from your backyard. Organic growing is popular because it doesn't employ pesticides or other chemicals that can cause health problems later.

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Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Step1

Plant some heirloom tomato seeds or the stem of a tomato plant during the early spring, while the soil is cool. Dig a 4- to 5-inch trench to place the plant or seeds. Cover the stem up to the top leaves if transplanting a tomato plant.

Step2

Make homemade organic compost. This can be a blend of soil, manure, leaves and worm castings. The natural soil creates the potassium, phosphorus and nitrogen needed to grow the heirloom tomatoes. Add the compost around the plant.

Step3

Use plastic mulch to warm the soil and to prevent weeds from growing around the heirloom tomatoes. Black plastic mulch can produce multiple tomatoes. Red plastic reflects the light needed to nourish the plants.

Step4

Use natural mulch, if you don't want to use plastic, to keep the soil most. Make mulch from pine needles, dried grass, leaves or straw. Wait until the soil temperature reaches 65-degrees F as this mulch keeps the roots cool.

Step5

Place stakes or wire cages around the heirloom tomato plants so that they can grow upright. The plants are less likely to become diseased or attacked by bugs since they don't occupy much space. Water the organic heirloom tomatoes regularly to prevent them from drying out.

Tips & Warnings

Heirloom tomatoes don't have the resistance to disease that many modern hybrids do. The plants can easily be cross-contaminated by tobacco mosaic virus, so don't allow tobacco use anywhere near your tomato plants, and don't grow them in proximity to other susceptible plants, such as nicotiana.