A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion The Food Garden Forum The Tomato Forum how close together?

How close together do you put your maters? I heard 2'. So today I dug holes 24-25 inches apart. I planned to put in 17 tomatoes. When I got done I had 19 holes so I could have put them further apart! I was kind of bummed but too sore to dig new ones. So now I will have 19 close together tomatoes. They are just one long row so that part is ok. oh well. Will 25 inches be ok? They are all indeterminate.

4 feet apart if possible.

I do mine 2 feet apart or more.

2 is half of 4.......

The rule of thumb around this area has always been 3 feet apart. A lot depends on the type of tomato and how much area you have. If it's known to be a large, bushy type, it should have plenty of room to spread out. Small salad tomatoes like Sweet 100 could be 3 feet or a little less. They tend to grow up more than out. Big beefsteak tomatoes need more room. Etcetera. :)

wow! I've always put my tomatoes 18" apart. they've done ok, but you can't get around them very good.....or at all except down the rows. I wonder if region has anything to do with it?

That's the thing. Plant them so you can manage them without a whole heapa trouble.

It's not always just about "how many tomatoes can I get." It's also "how much trouble do I want to make for myself?" LOL

Ok so next year I will plant 3' apart. I read 24-30 inches. But since I just have the one row I guess it won't be so bad. I can get to them on either side. I'll try not to let this bother me anymore. LOL. But I wish they were further apart.

I've tried everything from 24-48" during my 40 plus years of doing this. The greater the better really. This year I'm using around 36" for the cages plants and 40-42 for the sprawlers. Using 48" I wasn't going to get the number of plants in I wanted and didn't want to break out a new area this year. Maybe next. The main thing here is give enough room for good air circulation. Although mine grow together in the fall and seem to do ok. Earlier though I've noticed more disease problems if too close together. If the soil is amended well I've noticed little if any difference in production from 36" to 48". This would be my results in my garden. And many of the experiments I've read say the same. Now from 24" to 36" I noticed some per plant but if you consider by square footage would probably be about the same. You should be fine if you don't have a lot of still hot humid air then you might have some disease problems. You can always spray with something like Daconil. I have found it helps. Happy gardening. JD

What took you so long?????

I buy the tiny cherry tomatoe plants...that way I can space them 12 inches apart.

Ciao all-

I plant my tomatoes 2 ft. apart within the rows and 3 ft. apart between rows. I don't have much trouble with this method. Before I plant each season, Duane tills in about 6" of compost to the raised beds. I stake my plants and use cotton twine to manage them on the stakes. At peak growth, there's not much room between some varieties and plenty of room between others. I place soaker hoses throughout the raised beds and put 4" of straw on top of that to keep water from splashing from the soil up onto the leaves mostly when it rains, to keep the paths fairly dry and not overly compacted, to keep the moisture and warmth in, and to also choke the weeds down. Between the soil amendments and the watering/mulching method I use, I don't typically get tomato diseases in my garden, even despite our humid summers. I do get a fair amount of blossom drop when the temps reach 30C, but that's very difficult to do anything about. I still manage to get quite a substantial harvest despite this.

Cheers,
Julianna

That sounds great!
I planted my peppers today and had so much room I put 36" between them in both directions. I wanted to make up for my tomatoes.

Eek.......I just got my garden plowed.
Frost here tonite ......i covered flowers I put out.
Nasty.

Well I tried to give everything much more room this year than I normally do, but I had 15 tomato plants, so I had to skimp a bit on the room. I think I have about 3 feet between each one, but I really wanted a bit more.. but I am sure they will be fine. My cucumbers got the most room with about 5 feet between each. I did three rows of cukes.. with the last row being 3 hills of seeds for the pickling cucumbers. :) And my pepper plants have the least room but I think they will be ok.

I used to plant the bush variety for pickling cucumbers. Made it so much easier.

I need to plant some of my veggie seeds today.

I always plant my tomatoes too close together. When they are so small and fragile they look like they need to be close for warmth, comfort, etc. Well this year I spaced them a little better into nice neat rows.A few days ago I noticed more little tomato plants growing, yep, seeds that were in the soil from the leftover tomatoes from last season. I was surprised that these seeds would survive a very cold and long NY winter! I pulled most of them out, but just had to leave a few, I want to see if they will grow big enough to produce tomatoes! Even with the best planning Mother Nature will have her way.

I used to get my cherry tomatoes that way--from the previous years fallen tomatoes. If they are small enough you can still transplant them--they should grow nicely for you---all they may need is a bit of extra care.

Good luck!!

Even here in Mn we get volunteer tomatoes. They don't usually catch up though and so they don't produce fruit in time. I still let them try though.

In Penna we get the volunteers also.. They do catch up.

however i have about 65 plants out and dont need them.

Rules are made to be broken. If you start weaving too tangled of a web you can always just cut the side shoots that tangle off. I don't have much room and usually go 18-24" myself.

Ciao all-

Here is a photo of my main tomato bed as of 16 June. Things have grown since then, but this photo illustrates well how far apart I plant my tomatoes. This is just a few weeks after transplanting so things look really small and the stakes look stupidly tall for the plants. The plants will catch up, trust me.



Now here's a photo of the same bed last year 20 July. This year's plants will definitely NOT be this tall by 20 July this year. I had smaller transplants due to space constraints under my lights and we had (and continue to have) wild and crazy unsettled weather, making hardening off and subsequent planting challenging.

Do you get lots of tomatoes?
I havent seen stakes that tall .. Do you use a post hole digger to do the post?

Do you plant different kinds Julianna? I'm just in NB but we can't get the larger varieties to ripen on the vine...not enough time in our season.

Ciao all-

I grow tons of different kinds of tomatoes. In fact, the only repeats of all the in-ground plants are in that back row. I have 2 each of Opalka, Romeo, and Franchi Pear for my big red Italian paste row. I have dwarfs and determinates in containers out front, but only the dwarfs are repeats because they're part of a research project and I want as much genetic diversity as possible for the seeds I'll be saving. I've got one row of large heart-shaped tomatoes and one row of large beefsteaks, two rows of colourful (non-red) paste tomatoes, one row of salad/slicer tomatoes, one row of cherries, and one row of "weird shapes". You can see some of this diversity in size, shape, and colour in the thread about grow lists. I think I included a photo of a large basket on a very heavy harvest day.

Ciao Dodge-

Sorry, I missed your question. My post hole digger would be my husband, his ladder, and his mallet. He's also my personal backhoe. Canadian men have terrific strength in their legs from hockey and football (soccer to you).

Strong legs huh.......Most have strong mouths here.LOL :ding:

Glad you have a posthole digger and soccit to you too..