Tomatoes are the most popular vegetables grown in the United States. Their fresh taste is so much better than anything you can get in the grocery store that they’re almost always in every garden in the country. The problem is that while tomatoes are easy to find and easy to grow, sometimes your results are disappointing. They are susceptible to a host of insects, diseases and wilts. I’ve seen books that are entirely about problems with tomatoes.

The rise in interest in heirloom varieties makes the problem even greater since few are disease resistant. But with a little bit of knowledge and planning, tomatoes can be a winner in your garden every year.

I’ve learned that there are several elements to consider when growing tomatoes and my results have gotten better each year.

1. Soil

When dealing with any garden, the soil is the first step. Healthy soil means healthy plants, and healthy plants naturally resist diseases and insects. They can sustain damage with little or no loss of productivity, meaning that fertilizers or pesticides are less likely to be needed. Using our system of raised beds, weedless soil and well-balanced, organic fertilizers means you’ll eliminate a lot of tomato problems from the start.

2. Raised Beds

They’re great for about a dozen reasons – most important is that they allow for better drainage, warmer soil, no compaction of the soil and they are easier to work with.

3. Varieties

Choosing the right varieties is important. I suggest you avoid all the complexities and hassles of trying to start your own plants from seed and stick with transplants. With all the farmers markets and locally run garden centers, it’s easy to find the plants you want. There are three main styles – beefsteak/slicing tomatoes for a delicious sandwich, roma/paste tomatoes for stews and sauces, and cherry/grape tomatoes to pop into your salad. What you grow is based on your family’s preferences. One plant per person is all you’ll usually need and a single cherry tomato can produce enough for a whole family!

There are two other considerations – bush/determinant vs. indeterminate and heirloom vs. modern plants. Bush plants grow only so tall and then stop growing. They are best for small gardens with limited space. Indeterminate plants will just keep growing and growing and have a continuous harvest once they mature.

If you’re going to grow tomatoes where you’ve had disease problems before then you should use some of the many newer varieties that have disease resistance built in. Their labels will be clearly marked. Don’t worry, they’ll still taste great. If you’re starting with a new garden or brand new potting mix you can try your hand with the heirlooms – there is a wonderful variety of sizes, shapes, tastes and colors. Experiment with as many as you can fit in your garden and you’re guaranteed to have a lot of fun. Next year you can drop the varieties you didn’t like and try some others.

Always clean up any dropped leaves, dropped or rotted fruit and put your old plants in the trash, not in your compost pile.

4. Planting times.

Resist the temptation to plant the first day the garden centers get their transplants. Usually that’s about a month before the last frost and you’re likely to lose your plants to cold weather. Even if they survive they won’t thrive. Instead they’ll be unhappy and won’t produce like the same plants put in at the proper time. Those will take off running and never look back. If you have a spot with good sunlight and you have a raised bed, you can start a week sooner than your neighbors.

5. Plant spacing, air circulation, pruning – stakes vs. cages.

You’re well on your way to becoming a tomato master. You have the right soil in a raised bed, you’ve chosen the right varieties and you’re waiting until the perfect time to plant. Next comes the biggest issue, since all tomato plants need support. The question is “which to use, stakes or cages?”

The key is air circulation. The more you have the fewer problems you’ll find with diseases that curl your leaves and kill your plants from the bottom up, just as your fruit is starting to ripen. Wire cages and circles are fine, but the issue is how a tomato naturally grows. It has a main stem and puts out branches, but in the elbows of those branches it also puts out what we call “suckers.” These become their own main stems with their own branches and suckers and you quickly end up with a tomato jungle.

I recommend that you use tall stakes and prune your plants to a single main stem. Check every two or three days and pinch off the suckers that appear. It doesn’t take that much extra effort and the result is a happier, healthier plant with bigger fruit and fewer problems. I also suggest that as the plant grows, you remove the lower branches to expose the bottom 12″ of the main stem. This really improves the air circulation throughout the plant but the main benefit is in resisting wilts and other fungal diseases. The theory is that rainwater hits the ground where the wilt lives and splashes onto the lower leaves of the plant. The leaves get infected and when water hits them, it splashes up to the next level. That’s why you should throw away pruned leaves and branches and any dropped or rotted fruit.

In the past I’ve used eight foot pressure-treated wood stakes that I sink one and a half to two feet into the ground. If you’re a purist you could seal them with polyurethane or go with an untreated stake. Recently I’ve discovered some great stakes that are metal tubes covered with plastic that you can find almost everywhere.

6. Planting transplants.

It’s easy. Pinch or clip off the bottom few branches, pop the plants out of their pots and plant a little more deeply than they were originally growing. With a good drink of water they’ll be off to a fine start.

7. Tie them up.

As your plants grow up their stakes you’ll need to tie them. Look for soft jute twine and cut off 9″ lengths in advance. You can loosely tie a bunch to the top of your stakes so you’ll have them handy. Wrap around your stake twice and then go under a branch and tie loosely. Resist the urge to tie up your plant too quickly. Let it grow up and strengthen in the breeze first. This will result in a stockier plant with a nice thick stem.

8. Companion plants and interplanting.

Certain plants when put together allow each to grow better, either from encouraging beneficial insects or confusing or repelling the bad bugs. Marigolds and nasturtiums are the best examples for tomatoes. Look for varieties that have a strong smell. Carrots and onions also do well with tomatoes. My experience has taught me that it’s better to mix things up in the garden rather than to have everything together. So I plant a tomato, a pepper and an eggplant and then another tomato instead of having all my tomatoes in a row.

9. Mulch, mulch, mulch!

Mulching is great for tomatoes. It keeps the moisture in the soil at an even level, keeps the weeds down, and stops water from splashing up to your plants. Pine needles and pine bark are good choices. A light layer of dried grass clippings is good, but don’t let it get too thick. I prefer to use compost as mulch. Weeds don’t grow in it and it has the same effects as other mulches, but it also fertilizes the soil.

10. Water

You want to water evenly and thoroughly. Uneven watering causes the fruits to crack and too much water affects the taste. So keep an eye on things and if it hasn’t rained and your plants look thirsty, give them a good soaking. It’s much better to water deeply every three days than lightly every day.

11. Fertilizing

I don’t recommend fertilizer while your plants are growing. What’s already in the soil should be fine. But spraying the leaves (foliar feeding) is great. You can use various solutions like fish emulsion, or you can make compost tea, which is also great for improving insect and disease resistance.

Eric Eitel is a farmer, father, personal trainer and owner of Instant Organic Garden Southern Maryland, a business that builds raised bed gardens for homeowners, schools, restaurants and businesses. He gives talks and teaches classes on how to make gardening easy.

Call Eric at 443-771-3003, email eric@instantorganicgarden.com or check his website www.instantorganicgarden.com

Plant smart, and pay attention to the soil.

“Your garden is only as good as your soil,” says David Salman, chief horticulturist at High Country Gardens, a Santa Fe, N.M., catalog that specializes in native and low-water plants.

Find out what nutrients your soil has — and what it’s missing — with a soil test, available through local cooperative extension offices at a nominal fee (home soil-test kits are less reliable, according to the Colorado State University Extension).

Encourage plant health by fertilizing with natural, organic fertilizers, which include fish emulsion and liquid seaweed, Salman says. Limit the use of chemical fertilizers; they don’t help build the soil.

“You will have more nutritionally complete vegetables if you have healthy soil,” he promises.

One trick Salmon recommends, especially for gardeners living in new housing developments, is adding a soil inoculant called mycorrhiza, a beneficial fungi. It’s found naturally in healthy soil but often needs to be added to a new garden.

“New gardens in new subdivisions, their soil is scraped off as part of construction,” Salman says. “You need to put beneficial fungi back in.”

Peas, beans and soybeans could benefit from legume inoculants, which are species-specific (a soybean inoculant cannot be used to improve peas’ growth). Read product labels carefully or ask your gardening center for assistance.

“Your beans will do OK (without it), but if you really want to crank out the beans, you can do that with the inoculant,” Salman says. “It’s kind of a ‘grandma’s secret’ to growing great beans.”

Plants that can offer high yields with low watering include leafy vegetables such as kale, lettuce and spinach; beans, snow peas and sugar snap peas; and some varieties of cucumbers and squash, he says. Plant vining beans and peas if you have space or can grow them up a fence or trellis; plant bush beans and peas in large pots if space is limited.

Sarah J. Browning, an extension educator for the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, suggests planting radishes, carrots, peppers, zucchini and summer squash for summertime bounty. Peppers grow well in dry conditions, Browning says, and root crops don’t need frequent watering.

“If you watered them well and then mulched them, I think you could get a crop with fairly small amounts of water input,” she says.

Plant radishes early in the season or in part shade, and mulch them and other plants to retain moisture and combat weeds.

Browning recommends the cherry tomato cultivar Sun Gold and the slicers Big Beef and Celebrity as great-tasting high producers. Also look for disease-resistant tomato varieties, which are easier to grow.

He refers tomato lovers to Pennsylvania State University’s College of Agricultural Sciences Extension’s “Tomato Report 2011,” which lists the best varieties in its tomato trials.

Melissa Ozawa, a features editor for gardening at Martha Stewart Living magazine, suggests okra and Swiss chard; both are heat- and drought-tolerant. Melons also can handle less water once established because of their deep root systems, she says.

Not all vegetables grow well in all regions, so read seed packets, matching days to maturation to your region’s growing season, Salman advises.

“One of the big problems with horticulture in this country is, everyone tries to be one-size-fits-all, and this is just too big of a continent to do that,” he says. “You don’t want to grow a 120-day watermelon in Denver.”

Prolific, water-wise herbs include basil, oregano, parsley, thyme and rosemary.

Salman offers space-saving tips for herbs: Plant lavender and oregano along the drier edges of your garden, since they’re the most heat-tolerant, and plant Greek oregano and dill, plus annual herbs such as basil and cilantro, among the root vegetables.

Try growing perennials such as rosemary, English thyme, tarragon and lavender in your ornamental beds. They don’t require your vegetable garden’s mineral-rich soil, Salman says.

Drought-tolerant flowers include coneflowers, hummingbird mint, salvia and blanket flowers. Other cutting-garden winners are cosmos, zinnias, sunflowers and larkspur, Salman says. His favorite late-season bloomer is the Mexican sunflower.

“If there’s a bee or butterfly in a 10-mile radius, they’ll find that Mexican sunflower,” he says.

Resources

•  http://www.extension.unl.edu/

•  http://www.highcountrygardens.com/

•  http://www.marthastewart.com/

•  extension.psu.edu/plants/vegetable-fruit/research-reports/tomato-report-2011