Create Your Tomato Garden

Designing and creating your tomato garden is so much fun!

Your garden can be a space of ground in your yard, a raised bed with or without walls, a greenhouse bed or container, a patio container or even a hanging basket. Some gardeners mix their tomato plants right in the flower bed, while others plant them in rows like on a farm.

You can design your tomato garden in any way that suits your location and your life. No matter what kind of tomato garden you create, here are some tips:

Sun Exposure. Tomato plants need plenty of full sun exposure and warmth from morning until late afternoon throughout the season. Go for the spot that delivers the most sun for the longest number of hours.

Crop Rotation. Plan on moving your tomato garden every three years or so to foil the insects that specifically target tomatoes. That way they cannot establish themselves enough to create much damage. You can create an area of beds in your sunniest spot and move the tomatoes to a different bed every 3 years.

Protection from burrowing creatures. We have overzealous moles that enjoy tunneling so much in our garden beds that the plant roots end up dangling in air with very little soil contact. The carniverous moles are only interested in eating worms and grubs, however voles will use the tunnels to gain access to a meal of your plant's roots. To prevent this problem from the beginning, dig out about 6-8 inches of the soil and line the sides and bottom of the bed with chicken wire, then fill the bed up with the soil that you removed and the chicken wire will be hidden below. This won't prevent them from diving into the bed from the top but it does help keep them from getting in from below. We also use mouse traps to catch any pesky critters that don't give up so easily.

Protection from bigger pests. My golden retriever enjoys harvesting treats from the garden, along with a small population of feral rabbits, a family of mountain beavers, and roaming deer to contend with. You may need to consider some type of fencing if you have similar issues.

Soil quality. Whenever I hear someone having trouble growing tomatoes, they always blame it on the soil. I have failed in this area enough times to realize how important it is to have healthy soil.

Over the years, I have grown tomatoes in many different ways. Since my goal evolved into growing as much tomato sauce as possible, while my time to work on it became more limited, I started looking for ways to maximize my efforts and make the most of the short growing season we have here in the Pacific Northwest. Through trial and error along with some research, my husband and I found that raised beds, with a covering that could be raised and lowered, resulted in more ripe tomatoes.

For tips on how we built our raised beds along with more tomato garden design ideas, click here.

You can grow tomatoes inside or outside, but we've found that covered plants are more reliable to produce ripe tomatoes as long as precautions are taken to insure pollination. Our raised beds are outfitted with pvc pipe supports with the pipe curving at the top in a hoop shape. The plastic sheeting is clipped to the PVC pipe. It's purpose is to keep the heat in and rain out. It's like growing tomatoes in a greenhouse with an important difference: the plastic can be rolled up part way to let breezes flow through and vibrate the plants to release pollen. The plastic remaining at the top can act as an umbrella keeping rain off the plants. On cooler evenings, we can roll the plastic back down to keep the plants warm.

Growing in Containers Growing sauce tomatoes in the ground is the best choice because it allows the roots to seek out moisture and nutrients on their own, however if container-growing is your only option, don't let it hold you back. Home grown tomato sauce is superior to anything you can buy no matter where you grow it! Here are some tips for successfully growing your tomato sauce in containers.

With your tomato garden planned, built and set up with good, healthy soil, you are ready to move on to the next step in your tomato sauce journey!

Go to Planting for tips on planting your sauce tomatoes in the garden.

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