By Lee Dobbins
My mom and grandparents always had good luck when growing large tomatoes. Late summer and early fall at our house brought us fresh, delectable tomatoes to eat. My mom would can these at home to use throughout the year, even though I didn't exactly relish eating them. Fresh tomatoes are one of my favorite foods, but I really don't cared for stewed tomatoes. There is nothing better tasting-than homegrown tomatoes, and growing tomatoes is quite easy, in fact almost anyone with a large planter can grow their own.
If you prefer, you can start growing good tomato plants early, inside the house, rather than using the starter plants that most people like. If you want to do it this way, you can, although this method is much harder and the starter plants that are available make the process much easier. Correctly grown tomatoes are not planted outdoors until they meet certain size requirements. It's easy to transplant them, but make sure that they have plenty of space between plants. When you plant your tomatoes, make sure to give each seedling extra room for growth, and to put it in a sunny area.
It's nice but not necessary to have a big garden for growing large tomatoes; a window box works just fine for that purpose. You won't be able to plant as many plants, but even 1 plant can produce a lot of tomatoes. Growing good tomatoes is not something that can be done on autopilot, however. As tomato plants grow bigger, stakes will be necessary to keep them upright. Your tomato plants will need something to grab onto and grow around, so put a stake, fence, or specialty tomato wire frame beside the plant for this purpose. This will keep fruit from touching the ground. This way, tomatoes stay up off the ground where they belong.
Only use a trustworthy fertilizer in your garden, since it will be largely responsible for the health of your plants and will aid in growing large tomatoes. Follow two gardening rules of thumb with your tomato plants and keep them well-watered and in a weed-free area. You don't have to wait to pick your tomatoes until they are bright red in color, although some certainly like to do it that way. You may pick tomatoes before they are fully red and bring them indoors to ripen. Instead of the refrigerator, choose a place that is cool and dry to store your tomatoes for the best taste. You can keep green tomatoes stored in paper bags, and that will extend your fresh tomato season. They will keep well for a few months like this, allowing you to remove them and place them on the windowsill to ripen long into the autumn season.
