Tomato Tricks

Tomatoes are one of the best veggies to grow at home. They can produce loads of fruit for you to enjoy, and can produce for several months. If you have our spring boxes planted, you'll soon see your beef tomatoes (round), roma tomatoes (egg shaped), and grape (mini) tomatoes coming in. These are some of the most popular and best tasting tomatoes out there, and they're even better because the best tasting tomato is the one you grow yourself!

To be sure your tomatoes produce as much fruit as they can, here are a few tips that can help: 

• Plant food- If you haven't already given your plant babies some plant food, now is a great time to do it. Your plants have been growing in their new homes coming on a month now, and they've already started to flower. Pretty soon, they'll be eating up all the nutrients they can get to produce your tasty tomatoes. Click HERE for some plant food we recommend. We're focused on getting you great plants at the perfect times, so all the other products we recommend link to Amazon so you can quickly and easily get what you need.
• Tomato Cages/ Trellis- Did you know commercial greenhouses tomato growers can get over 80 pounds of tomatoes off of one plant! We're not shooting that high, but your tomatoes can produce well over 10 pounds of tomatoes each under normal home garden conditions (that's over $30 worth of tomatoes for your $3 plant-- a pretty great return on investment!). But that much fruit is heavy for the plant to hold up. Getting a tomato cage over each plant right now and helping them grow up into these cages gives them the support they need. We have some ones we like HERE, and HERE is a guide on several different ways you can help support your tomatoes as they grow. 
• Watering- Now that your plant babies are established, you can start to slowly back off of the watering. Start by reducing how frequently you water by one day a week, and you can keep reducing every week or two so long as your plants don't look like they're wilting. If the weather starts getting really hot, you might need to increase how often you water again. Think of it like kids growing up-- babies have to drink all the time. Once they grow up into elementary school, they can go without water for longer periods, but if it's really hot, they'll want to drink more than usual. It's the same with plants.
• Pests- Your tomatoes are delicious, but we're not the only one who think so! Pests love the delicious food you're growing, so it's important to keep them at bay so you can enjoy your veggies before they do. HERE are some tools that can help with that. 
• Advanced Techniques- If you're wanting more that you can do to optimize your tomatoes, HERE are some great tips and techniques you can try. 
• Production- By the end of May, you'll be seeing your tomatoes growing and getting ready to pick. It takes around two months for tomatoes to start producing, and they will often produce for two months after that. We'll be sending your next batch in June, so that as your spring tomatoes are coming to the end of their cycle, the summer tomatoes will be starting to produce-- your #EasiestGardenEver!

We hope you really enjoy the delicious tomatoes you'll soon be enjoying! Shoot us a note at info@leafdbox.com if you have any questions we can help with, and enjoy the great outdoors!