The Challenge of Growing Tomatoes

When I was living in U.S,, during the summer months I was often able to buy fresh, vine-ripened tomatoes and there were infinitely much better tasting than the regular store-bought ones. I have always found growing tomatoes to be a real challenge, not only from the weather aspects but also insects and bugs seem to love them.  I have tried planting them a few times and from each time, there were lessons learnt.  Due to the weather, I bought some tomato seeds that were labelled to be "tropical-friendly".  I used a high organic soil mixture with some sand content to seed the tomatoes.  Since I wanted to be able to move around my seedlings, I seeded them in polybags.  This also enabled me to keep it weed-free much easier. 

After about 3 days, they began sprouting.  I find that to ensure good root growth and healthy seedlings, it was important to ensure moist and not soggy soil condition.  A key item to remember, good root growth is essential as it is the point of entry for the nutrients that the plant needs.  So, if your plant has poor root growth, this will limit its ability to absorb the nutrients from you fertilizers.  When it was about 6"tall or approximately 10 cm, I transplanted into large polybags.  As the plant grew, more roots grew from the bottom level of the stem so I periodically added additional soil mixture to cover it which is 50% soil and 50% organic compost.  In order to accomodate this, when I transplanted them into larger polybags, I did not plant the seedling high but at about mid-level, allowing me the room to add additional soil in the future.

The tomato plants require support or else the plant will fall over as it does have a "soft" plant stem.  My plan is to retain these plants in a polybag throughout its cycle so whatever mechanism that I use had to continue to enable me to weed easily as well as move it when necessary.  I settled for creating "tube" fences from 2"x2" metal fence material.  These tube fences can be re-used when this set of plants die so I felt it was a good investment - both of time and money.

As my cats love to keep me company as I work in my greenhouse, this also help to keep the plants  from being sat-on or knocked-over.  As the plants grow, I would help the plant along by assisting the branches to ease their way through the slots, keeping it balanced.  After about 2 months, I had to add a stake to provide additional support as well as weave string along the stems as the weight of the tomatoes weighed the stem causing it to "fold" down, reducing the nutrients necessary to the growth on the stem.

To keep the pests away, I use a serai wangi mixture to act as a pest repellent, spraying one a week on the whole plant.  The plants are watered daily, in the morning mainly to prevent the formation of moss on the soil and also to ensure that it has sufficient water to prevent the plant from wilting.  After approximately 8 weeks, the plants began to flower at the upper part of the plant, producing several yellow flowers per stem.

Within 1 week, the flower had fully bloomed and dried out followed by the formation of the "baby" fruits.  The average height where the fruits began to form was 1m so I was glad that my tubes were high enough to be able to provide the necessary support for the fruits.  You can see the changes on the growth of the fruits daily and every morning that I am at the farm, this is the first plant that I check.  I fertilize the plants about every week, using organic fertilizer, which will further decompose within the soil providing the necessary nutrients to the plant.  I find the timing of the application of organic fertilizer is different from chemical fertilizers which dissolves in water immediately.  I check the root exposure level of the plant regularly and top up the soil as necessary.  It is important to keep the soil moist but not soggy or the stem of the plant will rot at the base, killing the plant.

I decided to experiment - I have some plants in the greenhouse and some outside.  I find that they grow as well outside as inside and that as long as I kept the pests aways, it was fine.  I placed the outside plants with a east facing so that it received lots of sunshine in the morning but shaded from the late afternoon side.  As I had planted it in polybags, it was essential to watch the moisture content of the soil - if it dries out, the quality of the fruit will drop.  I continue to spray it with an organic pest repellent weekly and it is now on a fortnightly fertilization schedule.  The pest will attack the plant stem, leaves as well as the fruit so it is important to watch out for them.  At the farm, the main pests are aphids, ants and caterpillars.

It took about 2 weeks for the tomato to ripen to a nice red-vermillion color from when it formed.  The average time from seeding to actually being able to taste the first fruit was 10 weeks. 
Nutritionally, it is a great source of vitamin A, C and K as well as Manganese and Potassium.  It is also very low on Sodium.  It is a good source for Vitamin E and Bs.  Being chemical pesticide free, I just needed to rinse of any dust and dive into it.  One thing I can say, it definitely tastes infinitely better being fresh off the vine :).  Personally, I prefer to have this raw: in a tossed salad, chopped up and mix with cilantro, olive oil and salt or blended as a cold "soup" - either of these ways preserves the nutritional value of the tomatoes best.
Now that this batch is producing fruits, it is time to start seeding the next batch.  The work continues......