soil

Growing Tomatoes From Seeds

Featured Content, Growing Tomatoes Guide , ,
Growing Tomatoes From Seeds

If you intend to start growing tomatoes from seed you will have so much more satisfaction than from starting from bought seedlings. But to be sure of your successes here are some tips that will give you the sweetest and earliest tomatoes on the block. Growing great tomatoes certainly needs a lot of hard work and starting early with your growing procedure will ensure that you bag in some of the best tomatoes of the year.

Here are some tips that will help you in growing tomato from seed:

Preheat soil: the soil in which you are about to plant your seeds should be heated first because tomato plants love heat. The best way to provide such a condition is to cover-up the planting area with black or red plastic sheet so that it can soak up the sun’s rays. This extra degree of heat will certainly give you all the tomatoes.

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Tomato Plant Diseases

Diseases And Pests , ,

There are sooo many diseases that can attack your tomato plants that it’s mind boggling. Here are a few of the most common tomato plant problems:

– Early Blight – caused by a soil born fungus and the culprit is excessive water and affects the foliage and the fruit.

– Blossom Rot – is caused by a low concentration of calcium in the fruit

– Late Blight – also caused by a fungus which manifests in moist soils and affects the foliage and the fruit.

There are ways to help combat these diseases and the fall is absolutely the BEST time to do it. If you are a serious gardener and want to produce your best crop ever, then you need to start conditioning your soil now. The following are some great organic ways to get that soil ready:

1. Pull out all the dead plants and if diseased burn or bag up and throw away.

2. Till up the soil to get it ready for a thick layer of your home made compost.

3. Mix compost and a fertilizer low in nitrogen but high in superphosphate, such as 4-12-4 or 5-20-5, (for calcium) in a big 5 gallon bucket, add water to make a tea like mixture and spread mixture generously over the entire garden.

4. Cover entire garden area with a thick layer of your home made mulch. (Made of grass clippings, wood chips, coffee grounds, dead leaves etc.)

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