- Use the most gigantically deep containers you can find. Trash cans? Great! (Preferably new or sanitized with a healthy dose of vinegar followed by some boiling water.
- Companion Planting! Do it! Basil and Marigolds with your tomatoes are a great way to keep your tomatoes naturally pest-free. Also, PRETTY!
- Water deeply and regularly. Stick your fingers in the soil, if it feels wetter than a squeezed out sponge, you watered too much. Some varieties of tomato are more prone to cracking than others. If your non-cracking varieties are cracking and have mushy flesh, that’s another sign of overwatering, so be particularly careful when fruit is ripening
- Plant a couple of beefsteaks among your beautiful heirlooms. Beefies have been bred for disease resistance, among other things, and they can help keep your garden healthy.
- Make sure and pinch the suckers out of the crotches (teehee!) they are not going to do you a whole lot of good, but they will sap energy that could be better used making you great, gorgeous pieces of fruit!
- Tomatoes love a ton of hot sun. They will not complain about being on a burning, reflective roof. Don’t try it in the shade. You’ll just end up sad and light on fruit at the end of an arduous growing season.
- Tomatoes really hate wet leaves. Direct water at the soil. Mulch them well and prune lower branches to avoid angering your tomato friend and making it more susceptible to disease.
- Tomatoes are resource heavy. They need lots of water, lots of sun and lots of nutrients. Make sure that you are fertilizing regularly. I use a combination of kelp meal and tomato tone to keep my guys happy.
- Avoid tomato blight by watering them with whey or spoiled milk. I dilute my whey to 50% and make a milk mixture of 1 part milk, 5 parts water.
- Stroke your tomato leaves and tell your plant you love it. Supposedly this encourages the tomato to be stronger and stockier. If you smoke, be sure to wash your hands before you touch your plants because tomatoes have sided with the surgeon general, and they may passive aggressively die to prove their point to you about smoking (actually they can catch tobacco mosaic virus from your cigarettey hands).