Blossom End Rot Won’t Take My Tomatoes Again
Blossom end rot wiped out half my tomato harvest last year. Turns out it’s mostly a watering problem, and fixing it costs almost nothing if you know where to look.
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Bury Your Tomatoes Deep. Like, Really Deep.
Burying your tomato transplants deep gives them a massive root system boost with zero extra cost. Here’s how to do it right, and why leggy seedlings are actually an advantage.
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The Sucker’s Guide to Pruning Tomatoes
If your indeterminate tomatoes are huge, leafy, and not producing much fruit, the suckers are probably to blame. Here’s how to prune them in ten minutes a week with no special tools and actually get tomatoes out of the deal.
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Sucker Punch: Why I Finally Started Pruning My Tomatoes (And What Happened)
I grew tomatoes for four years without ever pruning a sucker. Turns out I was growing a lot of plant and not a lot of tomatoes. Here’s what changed and why it matters right now in July.
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Blossom End Rot Won’t Take My Tomatoes
Blossom end rot took out three of my four tomato plants last July. It’s not a disease and you can’t spray your way out of it. Here’s the cheap, practical fix that actually worked.
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Bury Your Tomatoes Deep. Like, Really Deep.
Burying tomatoes deep sounds wrong the first time you do it. Turns out it’s one of the easiest ways to get a stronger, more productive plant, and it costs nothing extra. Here’s how I do it in Redmond every May.
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When to Transplant Tomatoes
In zone 8b, tomatoes want soil that’s consistently 60 degrees before transplanting, and April in Redmond almost never gets you there. Here’s how to check, how to speed it up a little, and why the calendar is not your friend.
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The Vine Truth About Tomato Cages
Store-bought tomato cages fold over by August and cost way too much to do it so dramatically. Here are the cheap alternatives that actually hold up, including the one made from concrete reinforcing wire that costs about $2.19 per cage and lasts forever.
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The Vine Truth About Tomato Cages
Those flimsy green wire tomato cages from the hardware store cost $4 and fall over by August. Here are five cheaper alternatives that actually hold up an indeterminate tomato without embarrassing everyone involved.
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Don’t Rush Your Tomatoes (They Will Remember)
April in Redmond feels like spring but the soil hasn’t gotten the memo yet. Here’s why rushing your tomato transplants costs you time instead of saving it, and the one number worth checking before you dig that hole.
