Time to plant fall harvest tomatoes…

June 18, 2011

Alright, if you're in Texas it's already time to start getting your fall harvest tomato plants in the ground. If you have old spring-planted tomatoes that are done producing or did not produce well this spring due to weather (especially determinates) go ahead and pull them up and put them in the compost. You have until about the middle of July to get your new tomatoes in the grounds so if any of your early plants are still producing you can let them go until then.

Celebrity
'Celebrity' Hybrid Determinate Tomato

Some indeterminates, like the old fashioned cherry tomatoes or some of the less temperature sensitive hybrids like 'Sapho' can keep producing small amounts of fruit through the summer. However by the time September comes around plants will be pretty beat up and you often won't get a good harvest. For most varieties, I recommend to go ahead and replace will new fall-harvest transplants.

Make sure to keep your new tomato transplants well watered and do so consistently. Going into our brutal summer heat, it's important to keep these new plants healthy and thriving so that they will begin setting fruit in September, on schedule. Fertilize at planting time, and then wait until you have baby fruit setting on your plants to start feeding again, which you'll do every two weeks.

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