When you’re ready to start your own urban garden you can take a look at this process to get tomatoes growing.
Table of Contents
What You’ll Need
- 18” pots or larger
- Potting soil
- Gardening hose
- Compost manure
- Cage/Support
- Tomato plants
Step 1: Prepare Your Pots
You’ll want to find good quality pots that are at least 18” in size. Remember that you’ll need to be able to move your pot, which makes a plastic pot the best option for most. You’ll want to clean it out carefully to get rid of any bacteria or other parasites that might be in it, even if the pot is new.
Step 2: Prepare Your Potting Soil
The next step is to get the potting soil ready, which includes a mixture of compost manure and traditional potting soil. Mixing these, especially if you also add peat moss, will help your tomato plants to grow properly. Don’t use garden soil for your tomato plants. You’ll also want to add some fertilizer.
Step 3: Fill the Pots
In this step, you’ll take some fiberglass screen for the bottom of the pot or some rocks and pebbles that will allow better drainage. Then you’ll fill up the pot with your soil mixture. Keep in mind you don’t actually need to fill it all the way. You only need about 1/3 of the pot to have soil in it.
Step 4: Plant Your Tomatoes
You’ll put the tomato seedlings into the pot here. Make sure you make a small hole in your soil and gently stand up the tomato plant with the stem down. Then pack the soil in around the plant to make sure that it stands up entirely and the stem is at least half covered with soil.
Step 5: Add Water
Your tomato plant needs plenty of water. Make sure you soak it down and then wait a little while for the water to soak in. You’ll then soak it down again, which should actually keep it fully watered for up to a week after planting.
Step 6: Find a Sunny Spot
You’re going to need a sunny spot to put your tomato plant in. It needs at least six hours of sun every day to make sure that it’s healthy. This can take a lot of effort to figure out the ideal spot to put it and how to get the right amount of sun each day.
Step 7: Keep Adding Soil
As your tomato plant grows you’ll need to remove the brown leaves or lower leaves and start filling in more and more soil. You’ll eventually get to the point where only about 1 inch remains with no soil from the top of the rim.
If you’re looking to plant tomatoes in your yard and you want to make sure they have the best chance for survival you’re absolutely going to want to follow these steps. They’ll help you get healthy, beautiful tomatoes that you and your family can enjoy.
