Upside Down Tomatoes

The tomato is an essential part of my vegetable garden every year. I plan the rest of my garden around my tomatoes. They are that important to many gardeners. One thing about planting tomatoes is they are not that hard to grow. Add some tender loving care and a little water and compost and you should be enjoying this wonderful plants harvest before you know it.

By following a few simple steps you will be well on your way to a great tomato season. Start by deciding whether you want to start your plants from seed or by buying plants at your local nursery. Next you should pick a few different varieties so your harvest will not all come at the same time. Put your plants in a spot that will get plenty of sun and add some compost or fertilizer. This article will look at a few ways to increase your chances of having a better tomato harvest.

You will have plenty of choices when you decide to plant a few tomatoes. The first decision you need to make is to decide if you want to start your plants from seed or buy plants. There are good reasons to go either way. Planting from seed will save you some money, as a pack of seed will usually cost less than tomato plants. You also will generally have a better choice of different varieties when starting from seed. Planting tomatoes that you buy from your local nursery has some advantages as well. You only need to plant the best looking plants you can find. Seeing how green and lush a plant is will help you pick out the best ones.

I like to plant a few different types of tomatoes plants. This will extend my harvest because I always pick a few plants that produce fruit early and a few more that come later in the growing season. I also always add a couple of cherry tomato plants to my garden as well.

Picking your gardening spot is very important. Your gardens success or failure may depend on where it is. You will need to plant somewhere that gets a lot of sun. My plants seem to do better if they are in a spot that gets least six hours of sun each day. I think more is better in the case of tomatoes. Make sure your planting spot can be watered without a lot of trouble. When you do not get an inch of rain a week you will need to water your plants so they can thrive.

Planting tomatoes is a very satisfying thing to do. Follow a good plan and you should be enjoying the fruits of your labor well into the fall.

You’ve struggled, you’ve toiled and, at last, you are satisfied with your garden. It just couldn’t be better. But what’s this? Pests! Now you’ve got to prevent the invasion of destructive bugs in your garden. Here’s the best kind of gardening advice you can find for that purpose: Try growing companion plants.

Companion plants are very useful to gardeners or farmers. They have natural substances in them that will repel or attract insects. In specific cases, they can even increase the growth rate of plants, even improve the flavors these plants produce. Not only that but they help to bring a balanced ecosystem to the landscape. Overall then, growing companion plants will result in much healthier and productive plants and better crop production.

There are many kinds of companion plants available. If this is the first you’ve heard of them, you’ll probably be very surprised by what you’ll find. These are some examples of companion plants:

- Tomatoes for cabbages. Some moths feed on cabbage leaves as well, producing the same problems caused by cabbageworms. Worse, moths give birth to larvae at such a rapid pace that a full blown infestation is almost always guaranteed.

Growing tomatoes alongside cabbage plants will help ward off moths. Tomato plant emit a particular odor that moths just can’t stand. It is loathsome to them. As such, moths will stay away from the garden and lay their larvae elsewhere. – Chives or garlic for roses. Roses are grown for their beautiful flowers. But pests can destroy these flowers and make a quarter of a year’s labor go to waste. Growing chives near roses will help repel the usual pests that feed on rose flowers.

Garlic is said to have the same effect of repelling such pests. Garlic actually collects sulfur, which is a natural fungicide, and can greatly increase disease prevention.

- Beans for corn. A pest infestation on corn crops can be very harmful, even dangerous for the entire farm or the surrounding area. Growing beans in the garden or backyard will help to attract beneficial insects that will prey on and help to eradicate the common pests that haunt corn fields. Armyworms, leaf beetles and leaf hoppers will all be but sad memories when bean plants accompany growing corns.

Sunflowers are also very good for corn. Just planting them around corn it is said will increase their yield. And if you’ve got aphid problems, you won’t for long. Your unknown friends, in the form of ants, will herd the aphids like cattle onto the sunflowers. It’s a curious thing. The sunflowers themselves are so tough that the aphids can do no more than very little damage at best.

- Nasturtiums for cucumbers. Cucumber attracts cucumber beetles. These are small insects which have strong jaws that are even able to cut right through the cucumbers themselves. Nasturtiums, on the other hand, drive off cucumber beetles and allow for the healthy development of cucumber plants.

These are only a few of the many types of companion plants that are available for you to use. Some of them are actually crop plants. Many can be found in varying types of vegetable gardens. Give yourself time to discover what these companion plants are. You may surprise yourself with the combinations you can create.