Selecting a Location for Tomato Plants
There are several factors to consider when choosing a place to grow tomatoes.
Sunlight
Select a location where the plant will get plenty of sun
Watering Tomato Plants
The location should also have a good water supply. This means close to a watering hose, within the reach of automatic sprinklers, or somewhere else that make it convenient for you to water. You don’t want to put the plant somewhere you will have to carry a water bucket each time to water it, unless it’s on your balcony in a pot. In hot summer weather, all it takes is missing a couple of waterings and that could damage the plants.
Eliminate the Competition
Don’t crowd your plants together, or put them too near another type of plant. That little zucchini plant isn’t too big now, but it could crowd out your tomato plant, or vice versa. Also, some plants allow snails to climb up higher to the tomatoes than they could by climbing up the spiny tomato plant stems.
Visualize
Look at the space where you are thinking of putting the plant. Then close your eyes and imagine how the scene will look in a few months when the plant is full-size. Do you see it happy? Are you having a hard time visualizing it growing there? Do you keep seeing another spot in your yard while you are doing this exercise? This is part of being in touch with nature.
Other things to consider:
- Nearby flowers attract bees which pollinate the flowers
- Put yellow pear tomatos toward the front for hungry people.
- Expecting to do landscaping in the area?
- See the section “rotating crops” and avoid planting tomatoes in the same spot as last year