Growing the Perfect Tomato!

Some of the hundreds of tomatoes from last year!

Salsa, blt’s, bruschetta... they all taste a bit more magical when created with fresh juicy tomatoes. 

So in addition to working full time, being a wife and mommy, I also am in constant quest for perfect tomato! These are my discoveries.

The first ingredient is farm fresh cow manure! Each year a close family friend always brings me several bags of this fabulous fertilizer!

Next is our compost pile... even though we live right in a town we have two compost piles set up in the back yard. We have a small garbage can with a tight lid in our kitchen so we can make sure all egg shells, and extra fruit and veggies extra are saved. Using the small garbage can has been a game changer because you don’t have rotting fruits sitting on your counter looking gross yet you can still reap all the benefits.

Once you’ve dug up your soil - and added manure and compost ready its time to start.

Put your tomatoes in a place where they will receive sun 100% of the day! For us this meant digging up part of the front yard to pursue our garden dream, but you wouldn’t believe the number of compliments I receive from walkers and neighbors alike.

Plant your tomatoes deep. You want to cover the stem up to the first leaves. The part of the stem that you bury will help roots to branch out giving your plant a strong foundation.

Now my tomato plants got huge, almost as tall as me!! So you want to stake them up.

Nightly watering seems the best. It is slightly cooler at this point, so the water has a chance to absorb into the ground before the sun starts scorching again the next day.

Once you actually have tomatoes on the plant it is good to break off some of the extra branches with leaves that don’t have tomatoes on them. This allows the plant to focus its energy exclusively on the tomatoes.

Ultimately, God blesses us making the tomatoes grow, but these seem to be a few things I can do to help. Good luck planting.

High Five for Friday!!

The days before a long weekend are always the worst... it seems like they drag on forever. But the weekend is here!!

View from our balcony last Memorial Day! 

#1 Top moments this week are getting ready for my garden!

#2 Remember last Memorial Day - I was only a few months pregnant and Hubbie and I took our last just us get away!

#3 Finding my trash treasure picnic table!

#4 Enjoying cooler weather for walks at night.

#5 Discovering I get to take the Dave Ramsey Legacy Journey. Basically, a course about giving and growing wealth after becoming debt free. We're not there yet, but working hard at it!

How do you grow your tomatoes? Did you and your hubbie do anything special for just you two when you were pregnant with your first baby?