Hello So, I am new at vegetable gardening and have had one not so successful year growing tomatoes. So, this year I plan to do this right. I started San Marzanos, Cherokee purple, tumbling Tim, sweet million and early girl tomatoes inside under a grow light and success! I have some good looking seedlings. I also have basil, chives, tarragon and rosemary. My questions are Is there a recommended container size to grow my tomatoes What kind of fertilizer should I give to my herbs especially the rosemary as it has been Very Very slow to grow Thanks all and look forward to hearing from you
For tomatoes, I use a commercial potting/seeding mix. As they get bigger, they are repotted deeper than the previous container. When you finally put tomatoes outside in their final growing place, plant them as deep as possible. You can do a straight hole, or plant diagonally. This causes the tomato plant to form roots all along the buried stem. For fertilizer, I use a combo of my garden compost and worm castings from my worm bin. There is also a special granular fertilizer for tomatoes available. Determinate tomatoes don't necessarily require staking and can be left to bush out, whereas Indeterminates keep on climbing and climbing and definitely need support. Also remove the suckers, the stems that form diagonally between the main stem and leaf stems. If you do not remove the suckers, energy gets taken away from fruit production. Towards the end of the active growing season, and you know newly formed tomatoes won't have time to ripen, then you lop off the top of the plants and prevent them from making new flowers and fruit. This is to redirect the plant's energy into ripening fruit already there. Rosemary grows in relatively poor but well-drained soil, and bake in the sun. You don't have to baby Rosemary with special soil or extra water. Just enough to survive. The best way to understand plants is to study where they grow wild and are happy, then recreate that setting in your garden. Hope it helps!
