Growing Bigger Tomatoes

Who doesn’t like big tomatoes? How do some people get those huge, beautiful tomatoes? I’m going to share with you our little trick that gives us beautiful vines and huge tomatoes.
Everyone loves a beautiful, red, smooth tomato. First of all, you need to be sure that the variety of tomatoes that are planted in your garden are “eating” tomatoes, which are usually larger. “Canning” tomatoes are usually on the smaller and full of juice. If your interested in learning to preserve tomatoes through canning, click here.
A few of my favorite tomato varieties include Mountain Pride, Better Boy, Mortgage Lifter, and Parks Whooper. These are large eating tomato variety’s.

​What is a Tomato Sucker?
A sucker is a small shoot that grows in between the main stem and the branches. When tomato plants are not suckered, meaning pulling the suckers off, they become very heavy, tall and bushy. These extra shoots do not serve much purpose. They just pull energy from the plant and tomato growth.

Keeping those suckers off
My husband and I usually sucker the tomato plants about once per week. Those little shoots can pop out quickly! When weeding or checking on your garden, check your tomato plant over, snap off any new suckers you come across, tie up your tomato plants to your trellis or stake to keep it from falling over. Using this method, you should have taller tomato plants and bigger tomatoes, because instead of all that energy going into the extra shoots, its going into the main stem and tomatoes!

Suckers aren’t all Bad
​I know, I know, I’ve talked all this junk about suckers, but there is some good that can come from them. Tomatoes are extremely easy to root a new plant. If you take the suckers that you pull off, put them in some good potting soil, keep them watered, they will grow roots in a few days and bam, more tomato plants. We have a whole row of tomatoes that were rooted from suckers and they are thriving.

​​Gardening is something we are very passionate about. There is nothing like hoeing between the rows, listening to the silence and the sound of little feet running through the dirt behind me. That is our relaxation. What a blessed, simple, rewarding life this is.

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