Jul. 25—The best way make a tomato plant thrive, whether beef steak or cherry, is to have consistency.
"Tomatoes do like the summer months," said Elephant Rock Garden Supply Co. CFO and Product Specialist Jessica Wright. "They like the daylight, and they do need water, but more than anything, they need consistent water because they can have a lot, but as long as that is what they are used to, you're not going to have blight issues or blossom rot."
An example of this is when a past flood took place in Cherokee County, causing blossom-end rot issues for tomatoes and depleting the ground of its nutrients.
"They can handle a drought as long as it's consistent, and that's what they're used to," said Wright. "They can handle a lot of water as long as it's consistent and that's what they're used to."
To increase the likelihood of the growth of a tomato plant, Wright said gardeners can buy a strain that is from the area and acclimated to the environment.
When it comes to watering a tomato plant, like many others, Wright said people should not get water on the leaves, as it can cause burn marks and damage.
While watering should take place at the base of the plant, a gardeners should also add mulch to the foundation of the crop. When it comes to mulch, Wright said any type is acceptable, as long as it is not chemically treated and does not have a trace of walnut. Due to walnuts being a growth inhibitor, plants will have a harder time thriving with it added into the mulch mixture.
Calcium nitrate is a nutrient commonly added to tomato plants, and substances, like molasses, can help cause the fruit to be sweeter. Wright said feeding tomato plants, as well as other vegetation, is a way to get nutritionally-dense fruits.
"Think of it this way: If you have a dog on Ol' Roy and you have a dog on Victor and it goes to the vet and gets treated, which dog looks healthier? Which one is more vigorous?" said Wright. "Same thing with if you see a kid who's only eating Red Bull, Takis, and grilled cheese all the time, over a kid who has a proportioned diet. Who's going to perform better? Same thing with your tomatoes."
With tomatoes basic anatomy containing six parts — roots, stem, leaves, flowers, fruit, and suckers — Wright said people need to pay attention to the suckers.
A sucker is a new stem attached to the main stem of the plant, but has the genetic information to create a new tomato plant. Suckers can cause the main stem to provide so much energy to other individual plants, thus making production smaller and in large quantities.
"A lot of grandmas used to say, 'Make sure you pick those suckers,' and they would just toss them, but what nobody ever finished saying was those suckers are brand-new tomato plants," said Wright.