Planting Tomatoes: The Ultimate Guide for Your Garden & Balcony
Want to grow your own delicious tomatoes? With a few tips, the right tools, and a little know-how, you can easily plant tomatoes – even without a garden!
Tomato Fact File
✓ Sowing: late winter (greenhouse or indoors)
✓ Planting out: when temperatures are stable above 15°C
✓ Harvest: early autumn (test for ripeness)
✓ Best varieties for beginners: Moneymaker, Harzfeuer
✓ Best varieties for balconies & indoors: Miniboy, Rotkäppchen, Bajaja
✓ Best varieties for garden beds: Paoline F1, Goldene Königin
Planting tomatoes: What you'll need
- Seedling tray
- Seed starting mix
- Pots
- Pot saucers
- Dibber / transplanting tool
- Hand trowel
- Gloves
- Watering can / garden hose
- Compost
- Plant support
Growing Tomatoes from Garden to Home: What You Need to Know
Tomato plants don't just thrive in garden beds – they also grow perfectly well in containers and pots. This means you can start growing your own tomatoes in the garden, on a balcony, on a terrace, or even indoors. No matter where you choose to plant them, these points are important:
- You must always start your tomato plants indoors or in a greenhouse.
- Your tomato plants need plenty of space in their pot or bed.
- Make sure there is no waterlogging. Choose containers with drainage or a drainage hole.
- Always choose a sunny spot – the more sun, the better.
- Use particularly nutrient-rich soil. Specialist tomato soil is ideal.
- Protect the plants from too much rain or wind. You may need to build them a shelter.
If you want to grow larger tomato plants in a pot, give each plant at least 20 l of volume. Smaller varieties for indoors will also manage with around 10 l of volume per plant. In the garden or a raised bed, leave plenty of space between the individual plants – up to 80 cm (depending on the variety and growth).
Growing tomatoes in a greenhouse is particularly easy and yields great results. Here, the plants are safe from wind and weather, and it is always nice, warm and bright. This means you can not only pre-germinate the plants here, but also plant them out at the beginning of spring. However, make sure you have these features:
- translucent roof
- heating
- sun protection
Extra tip: You can plant tomatoes in a raised bed two to three weeks earlier than in a regular garden bed. This is because the soil temperature is higher. When building your raised bed, consider the height of your chosen tomato variety: the taller the plant, the lower the bed should be. Otherwise, tending to the plants and harvesting them will be difficult.
Growing Tomatoes for Beginners: Here's How
Growing tomatoes from seed isn't the easiest gardening challenge, but with a few tips, you can do it. If you make a few mistakes when starting your seeds, or aren't too precise with watering and fertilising, your plants can still be saved in many cases. If not, you can simply try again next season!
Step 1: Sowing
Sow the seeds in seed trays or individual pots with 4 to 5 cm of seed compost. Each seed should be placed in its own 1 cm deep hole, which you then cover with soil. The seeds need plenty of light, water from a spray bottle several times a day, and a room temperature of around 20°C. A windowsill is the perfect place for sowing.
Step 2: Pricking out
Around three weeks after sowing, the seedlings will have developed their first leaves. Then you can prick them out. This involves separating the individual plants and planting them in separate pots or containers. Use a dibber to loosen the delicate roots. If necessary, a kebab skewer will do the job.
Step 3: Planting out
Three to four weeks after pricking out, you can plant the tomatoes out into the garden bed. Rake plenty of compost into the soil and dig planting holes with a spade or trowel. Carefully remove the tomato plant from its pot and place it in the hole. Firm the soil down and water the plant. Finally, install a plant support.
Step 4: Caring for your tomatoes
To ensure your tomatoes get the nutrients they need, you should feed them every 14 days. Suitable options include special tomato feed, compost or nettle manure.
For the first two weeks after planting out, you should water your tomatoes daily with at least half a litre of water. After that, they only need watering when the leaves are drooping in the morning. It's important not to water from above, as this helps to prevent fungal diseases.
Regularly pinching out side shoots ensures that the plant puts its energy into its fruit. This involves removing the unnecessary shoots that grow in the leaf axils – the point where a new leaf stalk branches off from the main stem. You can simply break them off.
