What I've learned from growing tomatoes for 30 years
Thirty years of growing tomatoes has taught me a lot. Not just about tomatoes, but about paying attention, trusting my own instincts, and being willing to let go of what isn't working - even when someone I know swears it's the only way.
Start Where You Are
My first tomatoes didn't grow in a raised bed or in the ground. They grew in pots and buckets on a porch or a patio or a deck.
The Chief and I moved a lot in our early-married years - military housing, rented homes, different states, different climates, different soils. I didn't always have a yard to dig up, and even when I did, I never knew how long we'd be there.
So I gardened in whatever space I had, with whatever I could manage, and I grew tomatoes because I wanted homegrown tomatoes. I felt like a nomad, and growing tomatoes gave me roots.
Those early gardens were hopeful, but they weren't always successful. But I kept at it, and I learned something in every single one of them - even the ones that didn't amount to much.
In other words, you don't need the perfect setup to start. You don't need raised beds or ideal soil or a big backyard. You need a tomato plant and a container big enough to hold it - everything else you'll figure out as you go.
I’ve met people who won't start a garden until they have the perfect garden location and conditions. Don't be that person: start where you are. The learning happens in the doing.
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| "Chocolate sprinkles" cherry tomatoes |
Experimenting with Tomato Plants
Once our family finally put down some roots, I had more room to experiment. And I experimented with just about everything.
Tomato varieties, for starters. Heirloom beefsteaks, sandwich slicers, cherry tomatoes in every size and color. I grew them in the ground, in raised beds, in containers. I tried growing them up trellises, in every kind of cage you can imagine, and yes, I even let them sprawl on the ground one year because I couldn't decide what to do with them.
Some things worked, some things didn't. Some things worked in one garden and failed completely in the next.
And that's exactly the point.
There is no general "right answer" when it comes to growing tomatoes. What works in your neighbor's garden, or in a video, or in a gardening book written for a completely different climate, may not work for you.
The only way to find out what works in your garden is to try things, pay attention, and be honest with yourself about the results.
I don't consider any of those experiments failures: they were information. Every single one of them told me something about my soil, my climate, my space, and even my habits.
So if you've been gardening for a few years and you feel like you're still figuring it out - well, you are still figuring it out. We all are. That never really stops. And that's not a problem, that's just gardening.
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| Green tomatoes hold all the promise of a bountiful harvest. |
If you're growing tomatoes this year, grab my free one-page Tomato Growing Guide. You'll find quick-reference information on companion planting, hornworms, fertilizing, trellising, blossom end rot, and other common tomato-growing questions. Download your copy here.
The Cherokee Purple Years
I want to tell you about four years of my gardening life that I will never get back. I'm joking (mostly).
A friend of mine - a serious gardener, someone whose opinion I respected - told me that Cherokee Purple was the only tomato worth growing. He was passionate about them, and he wouldn't grow anything else. And so I tried them - for four years.
Four years of coaxing Cherokee Purple tomatoes along, hoping this would be the year they'd really perform for me. I had very little success with them overall, and the few that actually did ripen were tasteless, at least to me.
I realize that you might absolutely love Cherokee Purple, and I'm not going to tell you your tomato is wrong. If they thrive for you and you love them, that's wonderful, and I want you to keep growing them.
This friend wasn't lying to me. Those tomatoes genuinely are his perfect tomato. They're just not mine. And it took me four years to give myself permission to stop trying to make them mine.
I'm done chasing someone else's garden. Done trying to replicate someone else's results in my soil, my climate, my raised beds. These days I grow what works for me, what I actually eat, and what brings me joy when I walk out to the garden.
Your garden has to be yours.
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| Tomato seedlings. When you grow your own tomato plants from seeds, you have a much bigger variety to choose from. |
The Summer Nothing Happened
One year I had the strangest, and yet, the most instructive summer I've ever had in the garden.
My tomato plants grew. They looked healthy. And then they just... sat there, all summer long. No flowers, no fruit, just green plants doing absolutely nothing productive as far as I could tell.
I called my county extension agent, and found out it wasn't just me: everyone in the area was having the same problem that year. The heat had been extreme, and tomatoes, as it turns out, will drop their blossoms or simply refuse to set fruit when temperatures get too high. There was nothing wrong with my plants.
A lot of those other gardeners pulled their plants that summer. They gave up on tomatoes, cleared the space, and moved on to something else. I completely understand that impulse: when something isn't working, you want to do something.
But I'm stubborn, and I wasn’t ready to give up on my tomatoes. I just instinctively believed that if I could keep those plants alive until the weather cooled down, they would come back and produce. So I kept watering them, kept caring for them, and waited.
When the temperatures and humidity finally dropped, my tomatoes flowered and produced - much later in the season than I would have liked, but they produced.
That doesn't mean you should never pull an underperforming plant. Sometimes that's absolutely the right call. What I am telling you is this: trust what you know. You spend time in your garden, you watch your plants, and you notice things.
That accumulated knowledge is worth something, and sometimes it's worth more than the conventional wisdom that says cut your losses and move on.
Your instincts as a gardener are real. Don't dismiss them.
Five Things to Remember
If someone asked me what they really need to know before planting their first tomato this weekend, here's what I'd tell them.
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| Your garden, your tomatoes! Grow your favorite tomato varieties. |
First, grow tomatoes where you can care for them easily and consistently.
For me, that's raised beds. I tried growing them in the ground here in Oklahoma, but Bermuda grass won every year. Containers worked, but I wanted more plants. Raised beds turned out to be my happy medium, even though having an in-the-ground garden had worked for me in other locations.
Second, don't overcomplicate your support system.
After trying cages, stakes, strings, the Florida weave, and more, I've settled on cattle panels because they're sturdy enough to withstand crazy Oklahoma windstorms.
Third, don't obsess over pruning.
Some gardeners prune every sucker. I don't. I remove the lower leaves for airflow and let most of the rest grow - although I'll remove those rogue branches that take off at a 90° angle and can't be attached to my cattle panel trellis.
In my garden, more branches have usually meant more tomatoes, and the abundance of leaves helps shield my tomatoes from the hot sun.
Fourth, water deeply and consistently.
Here in Oklahoma I often water every day during July and August. If your climate demands that too, don't feel guilty about it. Give your plants what they need.
Fifth, feed your soil before you feed your plants.
Good soil is important. Adding finished compost or well-aged manure to your soil before planting will get your tomatoes off to a great start.
Throughout the summer I alternate fish emulsion with an organic tomato fertilizer, plus homemade comfrey tea. Beware of using a fertilizer that’s high in nitrogen or you might have lush foliage but few flowers and tomatoes.
None of these five practices are magic. They're simply the things that, after thirty years of trial and error, have earned their place in my garden.
If you're growing tomatoes this year, grab my free one-page Tomato Growing Guide. You'll find quick-reference information on companion planting, hornworms, fertilizing, trellising, blossom end rot, and other common tomato-growing questions. Download your copy here.
This Is My Garden
So where has thirty years of growing tomatoes landed me?
Right here in central Oklahoma, in a good-sized raised bed garden, growing exactly what I want to grow.
And what I want to grow, after all the beefsteaks and slicing tomatoes and four years of Cherokee Purples, is mostly cherry tomatoes. Several kinds and several colors, because that's what I eat the most of, and because my grandson absolutely loves them.
Watching him enjoy them straight off the vine is one of my favorite things about summer.
I love them too, and I also eat them straight off the vine. In fact, so do my two corgies. We had to fence the garden off so the dogs can’t get in there unsupervised, or I'd have no tomatoes left!
Along the way I've also figured out a few additional things that work really well for me:
- How to save seeds from my favorite tomato varieties to plant the next year.
- How to keep tomato plants alive over the winter by taking cuttings and rooting them in water on my kitchen windowsill.
- Canning tomatoes - including cherry tomatoes, and also varieties that aren't technically "canning tomatoes."
- How to freeze tomatoes.
- I've figured out how to manage the hornworm situation without losing my mind every August.
- And I welcome every volunteer tomato plant that shows up in my garden, and if necessary I move it to a better location.
- You'll find the rest of my tomato-growing articles here.
None of these things are complicated. They're just things I've learned over time, in my garden (and my kitchen), by experimenting and paying attention.
Your Garden, Your Way
Thirty years of growing tomatoes hasn't made me an expert in tomatoes. It's made me an expert in my tomatoes.
And that's what I want for you too: not to follow my path exactly, not necessarily to grow my varieties or copy my methods, but to pay attention in your own garden long enough to become the expert in yours.
If you're newer to growing tomatoes and you've had some disappointments, keep going. Try different varieties. Try different methods. Keep what works, and don't be afraid to let go of what isn't working for you, even if someone else swears by it.
Your garden is yours. It should reflect your climate, your soil, your taste, and your life.
And if you've had a summer where nothing seemed to work - maybe that's this summer - don't give up too soon. Sometimes the garden just needs you to be patient a little longer.
I'd love to hear about your tomato journey - the victories, the disasters, the varieties you'll never grow again and the ones you'll grow forever. Send me an email at kathi@oakhillhomestead.com .
If you're growing tomatoes this year, grab my free one-page Tomato Growing Guide. You'll find quick-reference information on companion planting, hornworms, fertilizing, trellising, blossom end rot, and other common tomato-growing questions. Download your copy here.
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Kathi Rodgers is the gardener and writer behind Oak Hill Homestead (est. 2006) and the host of HOMEGROWN: Your Backyard Garden Podcast. With over 30 years of gardening experience in a variety of climates and soils, she helps new and aspiring gardeners grow healthy, organic food right in their own backyards.
A passionate advocate for simple, self-reliant living, Kathi is the author of multiple ebooks, a published magazine contributor, and shares practical advice with readers who want real-life solutions they can trust.
Kathi lives in Oklahoma, where she grows more cherry tomatoes than she can count and keeps a watchful eye on tornado season. A proud grandma and great-grandma, she believes that wisdom - like a bountiful garden harvest - should be shared.
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