Imagine going out into your organic food garden to pick sun-ripe tomatoes, knowing they are full of taste and vitamins… You are fully capable of this, if you just learn how nurture the tomatoe plants so they will provide a plentiful crop!

Growing organic tomatoes is not that much different than to grow non organic tomatoes. The plants still have the same requirements: enough water, enough light and the right kind and amount of nutrients. What is different is the way you provide these things for the plants. Let’s take one thing at a time!

Water
Tomatoes are not fond of water shortage; they need a constant supply of water to grow well and to produce a good crop. If you grow in a container of some kind, it is a good investment to buy some kind of self watering system. This is also preferable in a green house.

Or, you can make simple arrangement using a plastic bucket. Perhaps 5 centimeters above the bottom you drill a row of holes all around the bucket, small enough not to let the soil through but large enough to allow water to escape. Then you fill the bucket up to the holes with ceramic pellets or gravel, and then add soil up to the brim. The bottom layer of the bucket will work as a water storage, minimizing the risk of your tomato plant drying out.

Light
When you grow organically you will obviously want to take advantage of the sunlight, so make sure you put your green house or your outdoor plants where the sun is. Tomatoes love the sun, so put them in the sunniest and most protected corner you can find. However, if you want to start cultivating your tomatoes early in the year, and live where the days are short during the winter season, you have to use artificial light.

Nutrition
Tomatoes grow fast and need a lot of nutrients in order to avoid deficiency symptoms. Easiest is to use fresh grass from your lawn, just cover the surface of the soil and water. You can also use “gold water”, which means urine diluted ten times with water. Free and efficient, using recycling principles. Avoid fertilizer like chicken manure, since it contains to much nitrogen, making the tomatoes squashy.

Following these basic steps should give you a good crop of your own delicious tomatoes. However, growing organic tomatoes is just one of the things you do in your organic garden. There is planning, fertilizing, weeding and much more. Learn exactly what you need to know, step-by-step, to have your very own thriving organic food garden!