Hi I'm Stan DeFreitas, Mr. Green Thumb, and we're at Willow Tree Nursery in St. Petersburg, Florida. Growing tomatoes. Well, if you want to have a beautiful looking plant like we have right here, remember that you're going to have to have a good soil. A good foundation for the plant, and that usually means adding extra peat moss, black cow cow manure, really improving the soil. I always say you make a ten dollar soil for your one dollar tomato. Now this plant here, you can see it's about as tall as I am. And it's looking great, it's looking luscious. But remember, tomatoes needs six hours of bright sun a day. That's probably one of the most important features that you'll have. Tomatoes are in the Solanaceae family. Tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, they all need six hours of bright sun a day. So if you've got a dark side, it's not where it's going to do well. Bright sun, good soil, and make sure you can get a good water source to it. I don't care if it's a watering hose, a little sprinkling hose, or if you're just going to take the old fashioned watering can to water them. When you get tomatoes, remember it takes about 65-70 days from the time you start a tomato plant from seed, to the time that you should start getting some bloom, and then some fruit. Tomato plants are not cold hardy. They get frozen at about 32 degrees. So it's basically either a early spring, summer, or maybe early fall plant, depending on where you live. In Florida, you can grow them just about year round. But in other parts of the country, you may want to check your seed packages to see what they recommend. Remember, six hours of bright sun a day. Harvest your tomatoes when they get good and ripe and you get a luscious big tomato. And of course, they're high in vitamin C and they're good for you. Tomatoes need a good amount of fertilizer and a regular watering, and you'll have great results. Occasionally you may have some problems with some caterpillars, Dipel should take care of that problem for you. And occasionally a bit of a fungus problem, pick off the bad leaves, and spray with a good fungicide. I'm Stan DeFreitas, for AskMr.GreenThumb.com.
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