Tomato
Vegetable · warm season
When to plant
- Start seeds indoors about 7 weeks before planting out.
- Plant outdoors about 2 weeks after your average last spring frost.
- Ready to harvest about 70 days after planting out.
Plant deep; stake or cage. Wait for night temps above 50°F.
Frost dates depend on where you live. Enter your ZIP code to get exact dates.
Dates by zone: 3a 3b 4a 4b 5a 5b 6a 6b 7a 7b 8a 8b 9a 9b 10a 10b
Growing basics
Toxic parts. Leaves and stems are mildly toxic. Eat the fruit only.
Harmful to pets. Leaves, stems, and green fruit can make cats and dogs sick.
- Sun
- Full sun (6+ hours)
- Spacing
- 24–36 in
- Soil temperature
- At least 60°F
- Time to harvest
- About 70 days
- Containers
- At least 10 gallons
- Plant family
- Tomato family (nightshades)
- Harvest per plant
- About 10 lb
- Seeds keep
- About 4 years
Caged or staked. Pruned to a single stem and tied to a trellis, you can fit 1 per square along the trellis.
Companions
Good neighbors: Basil, Marigold, Carrot, Borage, Parsley, Garlic
Keep apart: the cabbage family (brassicas). Cabbage-family crops and tomatoes compete and can stunt each other.
Keep apart: Potato. Potatoes share blight with tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant.
Keep apart: Mint. Mint spreads aggressively into neighbors. Keep it in a pot.
Keep apart: Fennel (bulb). Fennel slows the growth of most garden plants. Grow it on its own.
Keep apart: Sunchoke (Jerusalem artichoke). Sunchokes spread aggressively and shade neighbors.
Varieties to try
- Early Girl 50 days: early slicer, good for short seasons
- Celebrity 70 days: disease-resistant slicer
- Better Boy 75 days: large, productive slicer
- Roma 75 days: paste, for sauce
- San Marzano 80 days: paste, for sauce
- Cherokee Purple 80 days: heirloom, rich flavor
- Brandywine 85 days: heirloom beefsteak, needs a long season
Pests and problems
Grow it well
Tips
- Water tomatoes evenly. Dry spells followed by a soaking cause blossom end rot and split fruit. Steady moisture, held in with mulch, prevents both.
- Plant tomatoes deep. Tomatoes grow roots all along a buried stem. Pinch off the lower leaves and bury the stem up to the top few sets of leaves. A deeper root system means a sturdier plant that needs less water.
- Know if a tomato is bush or vining. Bush (determinate) tomatoes stop at about 3 to 4 feet and ripen most of their fruit within a few weeks, which is handy for canning. Vining (indeterminate) ones keep growing and fruiting until frost, and need tall stakes or cages.
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