I just planted my tomatoes today. It was pretty satisfying since I started them indoors from seeds. I planted 4 different varieties, Big Beef, Beefmaster, Park’s Whopper, and Early Girl. All are indeterminate tomatoes except for one determinate start I bought from the store for cherry tomatoes.

For those of you who don’t know about different types of tomatoes there are three basic types, determinate, semi-determinate and indeterminate. Determinate tomatoes are “bush-type” tomatoes that grow to about 4 feet tall and set fruit once and then die away. Indeterminate tomatoes grow long vines, get more than 6 feet high and produce all through the growing season. In fact, an indeterminate tomatoes would not die if it weren’t for frost, disease or lack of care. Semi-determinate tomatoes are bush like, but have a longer growing season of fruit.

There are many considerations for planting tomatoes in Utah. One of the biggest considerations is when to plant. Tomatoes will die if exposed to frost or chilly weather. You should wait until two weeks after your frost free date to pretty well guarantee your plants will not be harmed. If you protect your starts then you can plant earlier. I planted today, three weeks before I should because I planted under hotcaps, like so.

These hotcaps act like a greenhouse and keep warm air in and cold air out. Not only will this protect it, but it will also help it grow faster because tomatoes like temperatures over 70 degrees. Some people like Wall-O-Waters, which work just fine too, but I prefer these at $.25 a piece with no water or stakes to mess with. When the plants begin to push the tops of the hotcaps after a couple of weeks then you slice the top open and gradually expose the plant to the elements a day at a time. After about 5 days you should be able to take it off completely and just throw it away.

When you plant a tomato, make sure to plant it all the way until about the last 4 inches. The stem, when planted in dirt, will produce more roots and you will have a better root system. Here is an example.

Another consideration is spacing. This will depend on how you will stake the tomatoes. Let me begin by saying that there are many methods of staking. I will focus on two, staking in some manner, or not. If you stake tomatoes then you should plant 2 feet apart in a 2-3 foot row. You can use those dumb cages they sell at the stores, as you can see, I think they are worthless, or you can build your own system that would probably be more adequate. For me I prefer to not stake them and let them grow out across black plastic.

If you have the space, this is the best method in terms of ease and yield. When the plants are staked the leaves don’t get as much sunlight and don’t stay as warm. When you let them grow over black plastic you maximize the leaves getting the sun, which is what produces the fruit and the vines heat up from the black plastic, which they love. I was taught this method by Dr. Gordon Wells and I have seen considerable improvement. This year, I am going to do my traditional method over the black plastic and then I will stake up two others and then actually count the production for comparison. That is why you see two off to the side in the picture. Those will be staked and the other 5 will grow out 5ft both ways.

This is why you need alot of space. When you don’t stake you need 4-5ft on both sides of the plant and about 5ft between plants in a row for adequate space. This means that you need a spot about 10X25 for 5 plants. This happens to be the exact size of black plastic that Home Depot sells. (Update: I have been using different black plastic which I like better, for more information please see my post on the subject.) It works perfect for this. You need to have an irrigation method which I have talked about in other posts, to go under the black plastic. I use drip irrigation.

Once I take the hotcaps off, I will put the black plastic on and never have to weed or worry about rotting tomatoes touching the ground. Note that you should irrigate beyond just next to the plant since the root system will be quite large.

Don’t be deceived by me only having 5+ plants, I am going to get a ton of tomatoes with just these plants because of this method.

Last, make sure you don’t water too often, water deeply and infrequently. See my post on this.

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