Planting Tomatoes For a Long Harvesting Season

Growing tomatoes is such a popular hobby with home gardeners that many gardeners try desperately to perfect a tomato growing method. When growing tomatoes most gardeners like to have a long harvesting season because the fruit is such a popular ingredient of most family's everyday diet.

Tomatoes are such an excellent fruit from a nutritional point of view that when a hobby gardener grows them they usually like to be able to use them fresh for many months and also prepare them for use during the off season by freezing, bottling and pickling them.

Various ways to lengthen a tomato harvesting season:

• If growing the same tomato variety then spreading the planting over several weeks will help
• Plant different varieties - this is the easiest way to achieve a longer harvesting season - different varieties have different periods of time from planting to harvesting and by choosing the right varieties it is possible to extend the ripening period of a tomato patch over several weeks

Circumstances affecting a lengthened harvest period:

• The most difficult problem to overcome will be weather in some growing areas as tomatoes like to be planted and growing when the temperature is over 65 degrees night and day which means after the last frosts - if the tomatoes are going to be grown in a location that has a short summer then most definitely the choice of variety grown will be crucial
• Starting the planting late in the season - if this is what is going to happen for one reason or another then it will be advisable to choose quick ripening varieties

Tomatoes vary from ripening in 65 days to 85 days in most cases, so by choosing to plant the quick ripening ones early, the longer ripening ones a few weeks later and then some more of the quick ripening plants it could be possible, given the right weather conditions, to have a ripening period of approximately 2 - 3 months.

With consideration to these factors when growing tomatoes most hobby gardeners will be able to achieve that extended harvesting period that they were looking for. Remember there are the small bushy types to choose from and the larger varieties as well. Combining these different varieties during your growing season will work wonders.

Kaye Dennan is an expert on growing tomatoes and shares a lot of informative information on her website at http://www.growtomatoessuccessfully.com. Visit this site and get more information to help make your tomato growing even more successful.