9 tips to growing delicious tomatoes at home

Heirlooms — varieties that can be reproduced from their own seed — are the rage right now, particularly among seed collectors like LeHoullier. He estimates there are 10,000 tomato varieties,

and, as a member of the Seed Savers Exchange, he has collected seeds for about half of them. Hybrids are a cross of varieties and can't be duplicated from their own seed. They were

developed to be more disease- or pest-resistant, VanVranken explains. Both have their advantages, growers say, and there's nothing inferior about hybrids. 3. MATCH YOUR TOMATO TO YOUR

GARDEN The amount of sunlight tomatoes need depends on their size, LeHouillier says. “The big beefsteak types, those probably do benefit from having six to eight hours of direct sun a day,

but as the size of the tomato decreases, the amount of sun it needs to be happy decreases, as well,” he says. If you get only three hours of sunlight on your patio, try cherry tomatoes in a

container. If you’re buying tomato plants, buy locally. Even big-box stores are likely to have purchased plants from regional growers, and plants will be conditioned for your area,

VanVranken says.​ 4. GO DEEP Tomatoes grow roots all along their stems, says Elizabeth Casteel, “the Tomato Lady” of Spokane, Washington, who last year grew 6,000 tomato plants — which she

calls her “babies” — that she sells from her barely half-acre home garden. When she transfers seedlings to gallon-size pots, she puts them as low as she can, leaving a couple of sets of

leaves above the soil. “I cover up the leaves that are [buried] because they’ll compost ... I don't rip them off,” she says. She tosses in some finely crushed eggshells to provide

calcium and prevent damping off, a fungal disease.​ 5. PROVIDE SUPPORT Garden catalogs and YouTube experts offer all kinds of ways to support tomato vines, from stakes to cages to string to

fancy trellises. Rutgers has instructions for a stake and weave system that commercial growers use and that is adaptable for home gardeners who are willing to spend the time. Whatever

system you choose, getting plants off the ground can increase your yield by 30 percent because you'll avoid soil-borne diseases, VanVranken explains. JohnnyGreig/Getty Images 6. PRUNE

YOUR PLANTS — OR NOT Too many side shoots crowd fruit, particularly if you’re using cages for support, VanVranken says. And many growers prune off lower branches to avoid leaves that attract

pests or fungi from the ground. But if you don’t stake, pruning may be less important, he says, because branches will flop down on their own. Pruning can give your indeterminate plant a

strong central stem, prevent it from flopping over and boost production. To achieve this, pinch out the suckers that grow in the "V" between the main stem and an offshoot.

Determinate plants require less pruning, and pruning may even reduce the harvest. Or skip the pruning altogether and just plant more tomatoes, Casteel suggests. In her own garden, she

doesn’t bother with pruning. “With 30 plants, I don’t need 500 pounds of tomatoes per plant,” she says.​