Frustration with tomatoes

Another thing that is amazingly beneficial in all vegetable gardening is companion planting. For tomatoes the all-time best is basil. You'll want lots of lovely fresh basil with your tomatoes anyway. I've been blessed to always have tomatoes that grow like weeds but have noticed a definite difference in health and especially taste of the fruits if I didn't companion plant with basil (only made that mistake one year!) I also get far less hornworms if I have a bunch of basil right under the tomato plants. Also make sure you have a good variety for your area - AND that the variety they say it is, is correct! Tomatoes are sometimes mislabeled even by knowledgeable nurseries - I guess they just have too many or are supplied wrong type etc. Finally, if nothing else works, try the small pear-shaped ones esp. yellow pear if nothing else works - those babies never seem to get any disease and will pile up on you faster than you can consume them!

Goldwave
Thank you. I have never seen or heard of pear shaped "yellow" tomatoes. I will have to seek them out. Will they grow in Canadian climate?

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deerlarkin,

excuse my ignorance, but is this "rotting on the bottom" problem caused because the bottoms of the tomatoes are physically touching the ground?

i read through the posts here and i cannot tell. i did this thing here last year with t-posts, closeline and bungee cord to suspend my tomato plants and the yield was incredible.

if my question is too stupid you need not respond.

We have a couple of walnut trees ( in the neighbors yard) whose roots extend over our entire backyard area. Our tomatoes don't care for it a bit. ( can't remember the name of the toxin that walnuts release, but it's pretty nasty to alot of other plants)

So we're growing in containers this year, hopefully, I can convince the wife of the merits of front yard gardening by next year

I will be transplanting our tomato plants into the garden later this week or early next week, whenever this storm decides to pass over. This will be my first year growing tomatoes (among many other things), and the only problem I have at this point is knowing when to water them. My first seeds I think I had in the wrong soil and I watered them too much. Don't use plain old potting soil from the store to start tomato seeds... lesson learned. The new ones I planted in dirt from my MIL's yard that was baked in the oven to get rid of all the pests. That seemed to work well. No fertilizers or compost added. They are pretty strong, but get wilty looking at the end of the day. I have been watering them in the morning and at night, and they're doing ok... they just look wilty after the sun has been on them all day.

When I transplant, I think I'm going to use a little chicken poo and bone meal, as my mom also reccomended that and she has had beautiful, bountiful harvests since before I can remember. I am also planting basil, as someone else already mentioned. Another mom trick. I'll let you all know how it goes. Thanks to everyone who has contributed to this thread. It's been helpful.

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