Tomato Gardening - Know These Secrets to Choose Healthy Nursery Plants

Millions of people each year flock to the nursery in an effort to jump start their tomato growing season. That's because we know that 'growing our own' produces much juicier, tastier, tomatoes than the baseball-shaped shipping-crate tomatoes at our local market.

Nursery plants are started from seed under controlled greenhouse conditions and sold by the grower when they reach a certain size. Prestarted plants are a quicker and simpler alternative to starting your own tomatoes from seed, as this can be the most demanding part of the growing process.

Consider These Facts When Choosing Healthy Plants

There are several factors you should be aware of when selecting healthy tomato plants for purchase. Potential problems such as improper watering, frost damage, tomato diseases, insect pests, rough handling, and others should be avoided at all costs. Ensure plants have a heatlhy, green, canopy of foilage that is not wilting, yellowing, very light colored with dark viens, brown along the edges, or otherwise dying. While inspecting foilage, look for broken stems and insect activity on the plant or in the soil.

Avoid Plants with Blossoms or Fruit

In addition to checking for problems, you should try to find plants that are not flowering or bearing fruit. Transplanting tomatoes to a new environment puts a significant demand on them as they adapt to the changes, and demand will be increased by buds and especially fruit. In the event that your choices are limited to those plants already in bloom, sometimes buds can be pinched off to allow for further main plant growth. It is better to avoid blooming plants than to pinch existing buds for best growth, however, and this action will not work with developing fruit.

If you are buying your plants during the start of growing season, you will have the best selection available soon after the first shipments of live plants arrive. Good stock will sell fast and remaining stock may be subject to poor care by the seller, so shop as early as as you can.

Grow Healthy Tomatoes the Easy Way Starting Today at Tomato Growing Secrets.