Growing Tomato Indoors, Garden, BackYard or even with No Garden: A lot of people love the idea to grow tomatoes in their garden or backyard. But, there are others who are not capable of doing it because of two factors which are the weather and space.
In order to address this problem, they should have the knowledge about growing tomatoes indoors.
Growing tomatoes indoors provide you with the advantage of growing and harvesting tomatoes all throughout the year.
How You can grow Tomato Indoors ?
It does not care no matter how good or bad your geographical location or weather is. It also does not really require a very wide amount of space. Now, the question is, “How does growing tomato indoors being done?”.
When growing tomato indoors, there are several essential things that you must bear in mind: light, heat, humidity, soil balance, and tomato variety.
Before growing tomato indoors, you should first be able to identify the right tomato variety to be grown.
1- Choosing the right Tomato Seeds
Since, you are onto growing tomato indoors, choose tomato varieties which do not grow that big. In order to keep your tomatoes growing, you also have to consider them receiving enough amount of light.
But, how would you be able to do that if you are growing tomato indoors where sunlight is impossible to penetrate? For that matter, the solution would be to have “grow lights”.
Check our guide for Tomato Seeds on :
- The Best 5 Tomato Organic Seeds: Features and Review
- The Most 8 Useful Tips to Plant Tomato Seeds Correctly
2- Consider Grow lights
Grow lights are just lamps or bulbs that are used as a replacement for sunlight. Today, there are lots of “grow lights” that are energy efficient.
This is because these grow lights should be turn on for 12 to 15 hours daily, and having energy efficient grow lights can save you up some cash.
3- Humidity and Heat
Humidity and heat also play very important roles when growing tomato indoors. Without humidity and heat, it would be impossible to grow your tomato seeds.
The heat is for the germination process of the seeds and humidity is for providing moisture to your tomato plants.
The balanced amount of nutrients in your garden soil is also very necessary in order to provide your tomato plants with the right amount of nutrients that they need to stay healthy.
4- Tomato’s Gardening Equipments
Be sure to also have the necessary gardening equipments or materials such as seed beds, containers, fertilizers, gardening hose or sprinkler, and etc.
When everything is on hand, you could then proceed to the first step which sowing your tomato seeds in the seed beds.
Read more about Gardening Equipments in
- The 10 must-have Productive GreenHouse Equipments
- Common Gardening Tools with Names, Use and Pictures
5- Watering Tomato Plant
Water them regularly but avoid over-watering them as it may also cause damage to the seeds.
Once the seeds have sprouted and reached about 5 inches in height, you could then transplant them to their corresponding containers.
6- Sufficient amount of light
Sufficient amount of light from the grow lights should be provided for your tomato plants to undergo photosynthesis and grow as healthy as they can be.
If ever you observed that your tomato plants are turning leggy, try to lower down your grow lights.
7- Tomatoes and Fertilizer
Also, stalk your tomato plants for additional support. Apply fertilizer to boost up their growth and health, but avoid applying too much fertilizer as it may also result to your tomato plants getting “burned out”.
Now that you have the knowledge about growing tomato indoors, you can have the luxury of harvesting your favorite fruit anytime of the year.
This is very beneficial especially for those who are living in apartments or condominiums. And of course, for those who love gardening and growing tomatoes but just do not have the luxury of having a wide space or good weather condition.
Read alsoThe 9 Major Fertilizing Elements Tomato Plant Needs with Effects and Impacts
The 6 easy steps to Grow Tomato Indoors at Home
Do you love tomatoes? If so, you should grow them in your own yard. A lot of people feel intimidated because they think tomatoes are very hard to grow.
If you know he right steps, you will succeed in having your home-grown sweet and juicy tomatoes.
1# Buy Tomato Plants
The first step is to buy tomato plants. You can always start with the seeds however if you are a beginner at gardening, it will be advisable to start with small plants. Seeds can be tricky whereas sprouts are much easier to take care.
For the first few weeks, you need to keep the small plants in a greenhouse or inside your house. Make sure though that there is enough sunlight for them to grow healthy.
After 3 or 4 weeks, you can bring out the pot because tomatoes thrive better with lots of sunlight.
2# Choose The Tomato Plants
The second step is to choose the tomato plants. Tomatoes have a lot of varieties and each variety has their own characteristics. It is better if you try planting several varieties at a time.
This will not only make your harvest more varied but it will also ensure a good harvest. You must also remember that every member of the family should have at least two plants. This will ensure that each person gets a fair share of the harvest.
3# Prepare The Soil
The third step is to prepare the soil. The soil should be rich and organic. The best thing you can do is to create your own compost from dried plants and animal manure.
If you do not have time to make your own compost, you can just buy from the nearest gardening shop in town. This will help the tomatoes get the nutrients it needs to grow fast and healthy.
4# Transfer Plants from Pot to Soil
The fourth step is to transfer the plants from the pot to the soil bedding. Tomatoes need to be planted deep in the soil. This will ensure that it has a steady hold of the ground and it will not be easy washed away by bad weather or fall down when it bears fruits.
The best way to bury it is through burying more than half of the plant itself. Be sure to water them right after transplanting them to prevent the plant from withering.
5# Water The Tomato Plants at Home
The fifth step is to water the tomato plants. Tomatoes need a lot of watering especially during the week after they are transplanted. It is also important that the water is warm but not too hot to damage the roots and leaves.
The bedding soil itself should always be moist there it is advisable to put some straw or dried grass to keep the area moist. It is also recommended that you use drip hose because this will prevent the tomatoes from getting diseases.
6# Use Stake to support Tomato Plants
The sixth step is to use a stake. This is very important in order to make sure that your tomato plants have sufficient support once they start bearing fruits. You can also use a cage especially when the tomatoes are quite big.
This will ensure that the plant will not be broken and will not bend extremely bend down during the peak season.
These are just basic steps to help you grow your own tomatoes.
Grow Tomatoes Plants With No Garden
There’s a gardener in all of us and growing our own tomatoes is one of the easiest ways to begin. Growing hanging tomato plants is simple to do and can fit around even the busiest of lifestyles.
If limited space is a problem, then growing your plants upside down in a hanging planter is the perfect answer.
Having little or no space to grow tomatoes
Not everyone has access to a large garden to grow their own tomatoes and this can put many “beginner gardeners “off before they even start.
We’ve all seen these wonderful pictures of big green tomato plants with succulent looking tomatoes on them, growing in what seems to be at least half an acre of garden.
But what if we don’t have that sort of area to play with? What if we live in a flat or an apartment and we don’t have any garden at all?
Fitting tomato growing in around a busy lifestyle
The traditional or standard way to grow tomato plants is to spend quite a lot of time turning over and specially preparing the soil.
Having nurtured your plants from tiny seeds, transplanted them up to larger pots and then planted them in your garden you have then got to begin contending with pests and diseases.
Regular weeding and then staking or caging your plants is also a very time consuming process.