Grow the Best TOMATO Varieties From Seed

We love tomatoes and we know you love them too.

They taste great and look awesome. Tomatoes are one of the most used vegetables. In Austria they are called “Paradeiser” (meaning something like apple from paradise). But not every tomato is red and round. There are existing so much different shapes, colours and of course tastes you won`t believe. In general, tomatoes are really easy to grow. But if you want to get extraordinary results, you really have to take care about a few things. But don`t be afraid, we will show you. If you like our instructables, don`t forget to subscribe and favorite, thank you for reading=)

Enjoy!

Step 1: Determine Your Goals and Challenges

To select the right variety, you first have

to think about your goals, because there are a lot of variables influencing your success.

Do you just want to get a lot of tomatoes or do you want to grow extraordinary varieties?

Do you want to grow giant ones?

In which climate do you live?

Do you own a garden or a balcony?

Can you protect your tomatoes from rain?

How much space can you offer?

Step 2: Selecting the Right Variety for You!

Top 5 Most unusual varieties:

Voyage tomato http://goo.gl/9jVic0

Giant tomato or beefsteak tomato http://goo.gl/OtnR76

Tlacolula http://goo.gl/rRrkdq

Green Zebra http://goo.gl/eYo1nC

Indigo Rose http://goo.gl/2sp5fD

Top 3 Most delicious (organic)

Black Zebra (my favorite) http://goo.gl/7J8DRf

Black from Tula http://goo.gl/w0v8Vy

Johannisbeertomate http://goo.gl/u61Wx4

Colder climate

Sub arctic maxi http://goo.gl/2EGyPC

Anna Russian http://goo.gl/Evf6a4

Some early F1 Hybrids maybe http://goo.gl/HRqXGv

High yielding and disease resistant

F1 Hybrids are the right choice here for you. They are an unstable crossing between varieties. They are often high yielding and resistant against diseases, but you are not able to select seeds from them because different tomatoes would grow in the next generation. I personally do not grow a lot of F1 Hybrids because I want to keep the older varieties, but it is on you

More seeds: http://goo.gl/urxYbn

Further materials:

Potting soil http://goo.gl/NDUKgW

Why potting soil? In potting soil, there are less germs as well as not much nutrients. So the roots of your seedling have to "search" for them and this helps to improve the root system.

Indoor green house http://goo.gl/Tk05I2

Tomato fertilizers http://goo.gl/DpBLwU

Step 3: Seedstarting

Depending on your space and on the variety,

start your seeds about 2 month before the last frost.

When you start earlier you will earlier be able to eat your own tomatoes.

Use good quality potting soil and fill it in a plastic box or indoor greenhouse. Sow your seeds on the soil and cover them with a bit of soil. Use only a little bit of pressure to press the soil and to give the seed sufficient contact to the soil. Make sure to mark and to separate your different varieties. They grow in different ways and you want to treat them right.

Keep the soil moist and the temperature warm to improve germination rate.

As soon as your plants are looking out of the earth place them a bit cooler but make sure they get a lot of light. You could also use grow lights.

Possible problems: Too less light and to warm (both or just one of them)

If your plants don`t get enough light or if it is too warm, they will grow very tall and thin. Finally they wouldn`t be able to carry their own weight and break down. So take care of this. If you really can`t protect them, transplant them even deeper.

Look here to build yourself a growlight to improve your results. https://www.instructables.com/id/60W-30-Dimmable-LE...

Step 4: Transplanting

As soon as you see a piece of a third leave

you should transplant your seedlings to single pots

I used plastic cups because they are inexpensive and easy to get. The challenge here is to plant your young seedlings deeper, but protect the leaves from dirt. Now your plant will start to develop additional roots on your stem, and this will make you plants even healthier. If you have started very early in the season, it should repeat this step and plant them in bigger pots. Otherwise the roots will grow radial and as soon as they get bigger, cut themselves off the water.

Step 5: ​Hardening Them Off

As soon as it gets warmer, take your young tomatoes outside for a few hours every day to harden them off. Make sure, that it is not too stormy and too cold.

Step 6: Planting Out

After the last frost you can finally plant them out. Be careful not to damage any roots. Therefore, use good quality planting soil with a lot of nutrients, your tomatoes need a many of them. If you want to grow them in buckets, make sure you use ones being large enough. Water your plants immediately after planting

Step 7: !! Pssssst Secret Hint!!

Because you have read so far, I will now tell you my secret tip(s) to get an outstanding yield!

When you dig your hole to plant your seedlings in the ground, dig a bit deeper. Add some fresh cow or horse manure and then add just a little bit of garden soil, then add Mycorrhiza (http://goo.gl/oSYEOM) ,

(Learn more about Mycorrhiza https://www.instructables.com/id/Save-fertilizer-yo... )

it will help your plants to get huge! The manure works like a long time fertilizer and will provide your plants with the necessary nutrients the whole summer long. The mykos will prevent your plants from stress. You should also plant your tomatoes deeper again to get even more roots!

Step 8: Pruning

To really get the best out of your plants, some varieties need regularly to be pruned. In general, plants with small fruits often don`t to be pruned very much or completely not. For other plants with bigger fruits it could be a good idea to grow them single stem or two stem. Please check your chosen varieties.

Step 9: Taking Care

Most of the tomato plants will grow very high. So protect them from breaking down. Therefore, stick a staff in the ground and bind the plants to the staff. Make sure to do it the right way and not to firm. Just to hold them in place.

Step 10: Disease Protection

Tomato plants don’t like water on their leafs. So protect them with a greenhouse or a roof against rain. Also remove the first leafs of the plant as soon as it is big enough, because every time you water them, a little bit splashes back to the leaves. It is also recommened to cover your soil with mulch or a garden foil, because the disease comes from the ground.

Step 11: Pollination

To get more tomatoes, make sure bees are able to come to the plants as soon as they are flowering. Wind is also a choice. Shaking your plants or using a vibrating tooth brush will enhance this even more. So you will get a lot of fruits

Step 12: Harvesting

Harvest your tomatoes as soon as they are ripe. It might be a little bit hard to recognize whether a green variety had ripen yet. So gently press them to recognize how hard they are. When they become softer, you can eat them.

Step 13: Late Season Optimation

In the early autumn, about three weeks before the first frost, cut down all new flowers, blossoms and tribes. So you can be sure that the remaining tomatos will ripen soon

Thank you for reading =) Please let us know, how it has worked out for you.

Comments

[Becky Sue]

Hi! Is that a single fruit in your hands, or a cluster? What variety is it, and where did you get the seeds? Are you willing to sell or swap seeds?

[Team Z]

I have got this particular picture from the internet. It is a so called "voyage tomato". It is a single fruit, but you can rip the different parts apart from each other without hurting the other parts. So you do not have to eat the whole tomato at once. You can buy various seeds from ebay in the links i posted in my instructable. Unfortunately, I haven`t saved very much seeds. It is also better to buy good quality seeds. It is a lot of effort to ensure the purity of the different varieties. I have planted a lot of different varieties together and so it could be possible that some plants have cross pollinated each other.

[geller6980]

excellent!

appreciate the 'tips'

one thing- I thought tomatoes were fruits?

[Team Z]

Thank you a lot =)

I think the destinction between vegetable and fruit is about whether you cook them or not. Might be wrong^^ Tomatoes are related to potatos and these are definitely no fruits. It is acutally be possible to ennoble potato plants with tomato plants but I think the yield might not be very good.

[rafununu]

Tomato is definitely a fruit. In fact, the fruit of the plant.

[Team Z]

Haha, yes you are right =)

[ZaneEricB]

if it makes seeds... its a fruit. That goes for anything.

[Team Z]

Definitely!

[bsroon]

i don't think i'm interested in size records or anything self-gratifying like that myself. i love salsa - have put up 62 pints so far this year, along with 45 qts of pasta sauce. That's just the tomatoes - and we have more boiling down on the stove.
We have a Roma processor with all the screens and augers and it saves tons of time and energy.
If you pick your tomatoes fully ripe (so grow a LOT) and slice them into chunks after cleaning them off - the processing crank is harder, but you leave much more liquid out of the process. You can do the same with tomatillos if you're making salsa verde. (have a few quarts of that too)
Of course if you're doing applesauce or whatever, you do have to cook them soft before you run them through.

[bsroon]

Lots of good information here, thanks. Personally have different favorites - but the key is to OBSERVE. Last year we AGAIN had issues with our Black Ukrainian - whose flavor we love. The plant dragged all three years before this - cracking, staying green on the top, etc. When the other tomatoes were dying off last year, the Black Ukrainian started looking better than it had all year. Hmmm

Obviously - Ukrainian temperatures are much different from our Northern California triple digits. So - this year we planted the Ukrainian under the apricot tree. It got morning sunlight, filtered early afternoon light, and western shade. It has done GREAT.

So just observe and think like a plant - a specific plant. It has gotten our tomatoes to be about 6 feet high, about 5 feet wide at the base, and while you think you are crawling around under there to get tomatoes, the plants are thinking you are fertilizer....

[Team Z]

Thank you for your comment. I think beginners should try out different varieties and check which one of them grow the best. So you can recognize on your own which work the best.

[bsroon]

Yes, beginners should try different varieties. Seed savers recommend keeping 10 feet btwn tomato varieties to prevent cross pollination. i don't know. My San Marzano is right next to my Speckled Roma and they seem to be pretty much their own plants still. We've grown Green Grape tomato plants for Mom for about 4 years now - always next to others - and they still look and taste just like green grape tomatoes. (need i say good?)

The SunGolds are meaty, firm, and very SunGold.

As i suggest - keep observing. Needless to say, give them good food, base watering and structure to climb on. i like to cut off my lower branches to stop splashing, clear up the bottom for watering, and do so after the plant has about 8 or 10 more branches than the ones i cut off.

Many of my current tomatoes are about 7 feet high (pulling down their supports, lol, they were about 8 high) and about 5 feet wide at the base now on a single "fence" behind the pole beans.

Perhaps the pole beans are providing some nitrogen, although i suspect the manure tea has been the primary food.

[Team Z]

Thank you for your helpfull advice!

Next year, I am going to try out some giant tomatoes. The world record is 8.41 lbs. 2 - 3 lbs should be sufficient for me.^^ A experienced grower like you should try out this too, I think.

[shortiemctall]

Tomatoes r a fruit btw

[Team Z]

but we use it as a vegetable. =) Thank you for your comment.

[Kuberkoos]

So is a cucumber, and an eggplant; technically speaking. But we use them as vegetables.

[Team Z]

Thank you for your comment!

[impied]

great tips! I'm excited to try them next spring

[Team Z]

Thank you very much =) I am also looking forward to next spring.

[Sunglowart]

Ooh look at your pictures ! It has turned cold here and all my tomatoes froze,... Your inle made my day