Some practical tips to growing healthy happy tomatoes that will one day be unhappy tomatoes.
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hey guys welcome to the homestead so today we’re going to show you how to make a happy tomato and it’s good to know that unhappy tomatoes that were once happy tomatoes taste the best but you may be asking yourself why are the happy tomatoes now unhappy tomatoes It’s because you’re eating them they are screaming out in pain as you chomp down on that beautiful soft flesh that they provide from their fruit and here’s a little bit of trivia for you it’s the fried green tomatoes that cry out the loudest it’s because you’re cutting them up and frying them in oil i mean come on so stick with me here in this video i’m going to show you how to grow happy tomatoes that will one day cry out and become unhappy as you eat them [Music] now here’s a prime example of an unhappy tomato plant that we want to make happy uh he is full of coverage he’s got lots of suckers coming off of him he has not been pruned at all he is tall enough for cage and we have not yet put a cage on him so we’ll do that also today but I’m going to show you how to make this a very happy tomato plant that will produce very happy tomatoes until the time that they become unhappy so you’re going to need a some pruners right here and you’re going to just go and cut these lower leaves off all the way down you want to let this thing breathe you want to get lots of breathing room all of that needs to go away now we got a little bit left here and that’s fine for right now you’ve opened up this entire bottom area i’m going to take a sucker out there there’s another sucker getting started up here i’m going to take that out um and just now that’s good now he is ready for caging and then after about another week or so I’ll probably take out this other branch uh but that’s going to be perfect right now you’ve opened this completely up for air flow and that’s going to prevent a lot of funguses and diseases from getting started another leaf down there um and that also makes it easier for you to water the tomato plant and also makes it easier for you to weed if any weeds pop up here or any suckers at the at the base pop up there you can easily pick those and see those it also allows you to see any issues when it comes to pest pressures that might be getting started on the plant uh by clearing away all that debris and opening that up uh you’re going to get less pest but if pests do come get your plant you’re going to be able to identify them and see them a lot easier as you’re working out in your garden okay now here are the tomato cages that I’m going to be putting around my tomatoes and I’ve done videos before on this on how to never buy tomato cages again most of the tomato cages you’re going to find at your normal stores your big box stores your garden centers are all going to be plastic or cheap pot metal and they’re going to break and they’re not going to last very long and they’re doing that on purpose because they’re number they’re made cheaply but they want you to come back and buy more if you buy woven wire fencing woven wire fencing and you cut this to a length of about seven squares and then just wrap the ends around you will have a tomato cage for life that will last forever for life i’ve been using these for over a decade they’re absolutely fine they last every year they provide great coverage uh great support and they allow me if you put the bigger ends the wider ends cuz the small woven wire fencing also has is on this end but if you put this on the bottom it allows you to easily get in there pull plants uh trim anything you need to trim uh especially in the younger stages of that plant and uh just manage it correctly and easily this woven wire fence will last forever go out and get yourself some woven wire fence make your tomato cages and never buy tomato cages again and then what you’re going to do is you’re going to buy some rebar and you’re going to make these 5-ft stakes and they’re going to weave in and out of this tomato cage and provide great support all growing season so my goals today is to get these cages and stakes around all my tomato plants so that they will be happy plants that will grow happy tomatoes that one day will be unhappy tomatoes this one got pretty bad you can see he’s crawling along the ground and he just needed to be picked up about I don’t know two weeks ago and I knew there’d be some of those like that out here but he can be fixed it’s fine i’m going to go ahead and cage him up i’ll lean him up against that cage and he will straighten himself out he’ll be kind of pointing towards the edge there but he’ll straighten himself out pretty pretty quickly after maybe a week or so um this one here got kind of bad as well most of these are going to be fine uh you’ll see once I get all these cleared like that one over there looks really good but anyway all these are going to be trimmed some of them are a little worse than others uh but they’re definitely behind schedule when it comes to trimming and pruning and getting these ready for cages so we’ll get this guy fixed right up here shortly so he can grow happy tomatoes after clearing all of those lower leaves you can see that most of these plants are already standing up straighter the good general rule of thumb is to make sure that your plants lower leaves never touch the ground now there’s a few of them i think over here you can kind of see they’re almost close to touching if not maybe there’s one there I think that’s touching um those will also be trimmed but probably in a few days I want to get the plant some more growth but what we’ve done here is open up that underside so the air can move through now a few of these plants I could already see just a few aphids getting started in their colonies so it’s a good thing we came out here and cleared this off because if you provide that shade for them that protection for them they will the aphids will flourish and that will be detrimental to your plants when you clear out that openness and you give that airflow and you get that sunshine down there it’s a lot harder for those aphids to take control take root and hurt your hurt your hopefully happy tomato plants so what I’m going to do with the rest of these happy tomato plants is go ahead and get them caged up staked up and then I’ll give them some water tonight i don’t like to water when the sun’s getting really hot and really high up in the sky as it is right now i like to do that in the evening or in the early morning and so watering time is over for the morning but I will be giving them some water this evening uh for them to you know drink up during the evening hours at night but that’s how you make a happy tomato plant so that you can produce happy tomatoes that one day will scream out in agony and pain and become unhappy as you eat them all right subscribe if you haven’t done so hit the but hit the like button before you go share the video on social media on your fa your Facebook gardening friends so that they can all find my channel and also learn how to grow happy tomatoes see you next time in the homestead bye if you didn’t know you can add chicken manure hot fresh chicken manure right on your corn and it won’t burn ask me how I know can you see that daddy longleg down there That guy is in a prime position to eat anything that comes on this plant daddy Longlegs their Latin name actually means aphid sucker and all over my corn plants right here I can see Daddy Longlegs waiting for their next meal there’s another one right there do you see him There’s another one right there and another one have you ever gone to a health food store and seen all those small bottles of probiotics in your cooler section Man can they be pricey are you really getting all you need to improve your gut health from those expensive bottles How viable are they Most of those products claim to give you between eight and 15 strains of gut-healthy healing bacteria think of each strain of bacteria as a different factory in your gut each factory is responsible for breaking down that food in its own way the more factories you have the more the food is broken down and the easier the food is absorbed and digested by the body a 2018 study published by the National Library of Medicine shows that one fermented head of cabbage can produce up to 114 strains of beneficial bacteria that’s a lot more food factories than you’re getting from that expensive pill bottle and that’s just cabbage imagine the probiotics when you add garlic onions pepper and more to that ferment perfectpickler.com and its home fermentation kits provide you with everything you need to get started making your own gut-healthy food factories from the comfort of your own kitchen perfectpicker.com even provides a jam-packed recipe book with many of our kits visit perfectpickler.com and start fermenting your own veggies to begin your journey to better gut health that’s perfect.com [Music] hey guys did you know you can become a patron of an American homestead 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39 Comments
Love me some happy tomatoes but by your description I'm a sadist because more than a happy tomato, I soooooooo enjoy unhappy tomatoes. Lol
Vegetables have feelings how dare uuuuuu
Fried green tomatoes…my tomatoes aren't quite ready for that, but sooooooooo close that I'm dreaming of them…
❤
Love the landscape fabric, it has made a world of difference. I use cattle panels to tie my tomatoes up last few years, works well
My tomato cages collapse and is a really heavy metal and a few I can add another layer if I have ones that get too tall. I have had them 6ys and counting. They are great come fall when I need to pull things up and store them.
I need to go and trim back my tomatoes and peppers. I take the sucker's from early and hit them with root hormone and put them in a seedling tray and now I have more.
Need to move some of them daddy long legs to the tomatoes lol..
Message from the "First Perfect Sourdough Guy"! Was forwarded the 25 Ozarks Homesteading and looks like you are discussing off grid. How deep will you be going on that topic? Nice meeting up with you last weekend. Gary
@PETA arrest this man
MyTeFine Looking Tomato plants.
Happy little tomatoes
🍅🖌🎨
That is cool!
The spiders are guarding them! Nice
Great advice 🙏 Tomatoes have become my favorite to grow up here in Maine. I trellis mine with twine instead of using cages. The metal is reminiscent of those wire coathangers of my nightmares (i used to work at a laundry mat as a teenager, lol).
Do you have any favorite varieties, Zack?
6:26 so very easy. Thank you! ❤
That, is a lot of tomatoe plants.
thanks
Beautiful garden….. please tell me how you get onions that big….Wow.
So daddy long legs eat aphids? Good to know!
My tomato cages I got from a neighbor that was throwing them out after her husband passed. They look like they were made from cattle panels. He had them for decades. I've had them for a few yrs. They are perfect. If they keep going I'll pass them on
You’re the Bob Ross of tomatoes 🤣😅😂
Thanks for the pointers Zac. We have room for lots of tomatoes, but not for the cages, so we use cattle panels. Works for us. Great info on the daddy long legs. Shalom and Blessings from NE Missouri.
Next time you do a tomato pruning video I suggest that you title it “I’m gonna get you sucker!” A little comedy never hurts!
I did the Florida weave this yr. Ill never do cages again. Its a game changer IMO
How do you know you can put hot chicken manure on corn?
I hope mine make it after all the rain. Now so hot I gotta cover from hot sun and UV.
I get the red heavy duty square cages. Bucks. They are great. Ace has the best
Zack. Dosen't the black ground cover fry the plants later or when sun UV is so hot now ?
I planted the first 4 Parks Whopper 2 supersonic 6 Amish paste. The cages put on right afterwards. The side branches trimmed every 2 days hundreds of blossoms and tiny baby maters. Next step 6-6’ t posts,, pipe t and pvc pipe, then trellis the rest
Ha ! You’re back. Great to hear from you. My female ESP. Tells me something’s afoot. Hmmm.
Yum. Sweet green tomatoes relish.
I consider myself a decent gardener. However I can’t grow tomatoes to save my life. They start out beautiful. I have prepared my soil both in ground and in raised beds. My cherry tomatoes look and do great. Slicers…. I may get a couple. I blame it on Texas heat. However I feel like if I can’t grow a tomato I’m not a gardener. I’m going to start new seeds to do a fall planting. 🤦♀️ I will never give up!!
Very nice !!! How do you deal with ticks in your garden? New to AR and holy crap there's soooo many ticks !!
Zach, one question about your weed barrier. I don't direct seed my tomatoes and like to plant them deep. How do you manage to plant your tomatoes in such small holes!
Personally speaking I am having a hard time growing my tomatoes and my other vegetables due to all this upside down weather.
All my vegetables began to sprout seedlings before even growing the vegetable or fruit what is up with that.
Hopefully things will change and my plants will begin to act normally including the weather.
I just found out that you can eat the leaves from tomatoes in moderation in soups and stews and salads or even making a dip out of it.
It has a lot of health benefits.
I have bare earth in my garden, I don't use that black plastic. When I trim my tomatoes and take off all those lower leaves and stems I then plant companion plants under the tomato plants that prefer shade.
ZACK – Sounds like you have heard Baxter Black's Vegetarians nightmare. 😄
Question. I planted my potatoes using ground cover. It appears this was a mistake. We have and issue with earwigs. Any suggestion ?.
We all need happy tomatoes! Thanks Zack
We are growing 250 tomato plants this year. We went with cattle panels bc I could put 2 rows on one panel. I just put 2 rows close together and then did a wide walkway on the other sides of them.
Now I have winter fencing for my dairy goats too.
I DO want to do the woven wire for cherry tomatoes though.
Algo bump. Shalom