Slicing or Eating Tomatoes
Planting, Growing, and Harvesting
Slicing or Eating Tomatoes
You’ll find everything you need to know to plant and grow slicing or eating tomatoes in the accompanying table’s tabs:
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- How many slicing or eating tomato plants to grow
- Growing conditions for slicing or eating tomatoes
- When to plant slicing or eating tomatoes
- How to plant slicing or eating tomatoes
- Watering, fertilizing, and pruning slicing or eating tomatoes
- Companion plantings for slicing or eating tomatoes
- How to harvest, store, and use slicing or eating tomatoes
Growing Slicing or Eating Tomatoes
Slicing and eating tomatoes are warm-season, tender, fruiting perennial plants.
Largest, juiciest, and most flavorful of the many different types of tomatoes, eating tomatoes come in both early and midseason varieties; those with longer maturities have best taste and texture.
Indeterminate slicing tomatoes produce a series of ripening harvests in long-season regions, but need the entire season to ripen in short-season areas with late and early frosts. Determinate varieties ripen all at once, useful if the tomatoes will made into tomato juice.
Slicing or Eating Tomato Plant Guide
How Much to Plant
Allow 1–2 plants of each cultivar per household member, mixing early and late cultivars. For juicing, allow 3–6 plants of each cultivar, yielding 5–8 qts. (4.7–7.6 l).
How to Plant
Seed germinates in 8–10 days.
Tomato seed germination and early plant development vary with soil temperature. To start indoors, sow seed indoors 10–14 weeks before soil is expected to warm to 55°F (13°C) and harden tomato starts 7–10 days before transplanting.
Set out seedlings in full sun when soil warms to 55–85°F (13–29°C), or plant in late summer in hot climates, after heat has broken and 3 months of warm weather remains.
Allow 6–8 weeks for first flower set and tomato development. Sow 2–3 seeds in each drill 1/2-in. (12 mm) deep, 18 in. (45 cm) apart, thinning to 42 in. (1.1 m) apart.
Plant seedlings 42 in. (1.1 m) apart, in rows 40–50 in. (1–1.2 m) apart. For staking cultivars, thin to 24 in. (60 cm) apart, in rows 36–48 in. (90–120 cm) apart, installing stakes or cages at time of planting [See: Installing Tomato Cages].
Best Conditions for Growth
65–90°F (18–32°C). Flowers may fail to set fruit at temperatures over 85°F (29°C). Shade plants in full sunlight at temperatures over 90°F (32°C).
Soil Type and Fertility
Moist, well-drained soil. Fertility: Rich. 5.5–6.8 pH. Prepare soil at least 3 ft. (90 cm) deep.
Proper Care
Easy. Keep evenly moist during growth until flowers appear; avoid wetting foliage, fruit, or vines. Reduce watering after fruit set. Fertilize monthly with 5–10–10 formula until fruit begins to set; avoid high-nitrogen fertilizers. Mulch. Inspect frequently for foliage damage or droppings due to tomato hornworm, a large, green moth larva, and other pests. Blossom-end rot susceptible.
Pairing Recommendations
Asparagus, basil, borage, calendula, carrots, chamomile, chives, garlic, marigolds, onions, parsley, and shallots.
Maturity, Picking and Gathering
50–90 days. Pick when full colored and desired size for eating; when green for frying, pickling. Ripe tomato dimples when a fingernail presses their skin. Support vines while gently removing fruit.
How to Store and Preserve
Fresh at 60–70°F (16–21°C), for 7–10 days; juiced and frozen, to 6 months; pickled, to 2 years. The tomato of choice for sandwiches, salads, and pizza, or picked green and pickled, or breaded and fried.