Planting a tasty variety is only half the story of growing really tasty tomatoes. Good soil and nutrition are also very important for flavor. Good tomato soil is light and rich in nutrients.

Good tomato fertilizer is organic. Artificial fertilizer (especially nitrogen-containing fertilizer) gives less flavor to tomatoes than organic fertilizer. We saw this happening very clearly in our pot tomato nursery. That’s why all our tomato plants now get organic fertilizer, sometimes supplemented with mined salts such as potassium sulfate and magnesium sulfate.

As a hobby I grow old tomato varieties in the same place of the greenhouse every year, so I don’t do crop rotation. If you have the space, I would use crop rotation as much as possible, so that you would suffer less from soil diseases. But because I only want to grow tomatoes and nothing else, there is not much for me to change. 😊 I take good care of the soil and the plants and so far I have had little problem with disease.

In autumn, when the old tomato plants are gone, I put a thick layer of compost on the spot where the tomato plants will be planted in spring. I don’t work the compost into the ground, but place a layer of compost 2 to 3 cm deep on top of the soil. Then I water it well and leave it alone until I plant the young tomato plants.When spring comes around, I first dig the seed holes, tossing a handful of organic fertilizer in each hole before planting the seedlings.

Around the end of June, I sprinkle a handful of organic fertilizer around each tomato plant and work it lightly in the ground. Every time the plants get water, the water slowly soaks the fertilizer deeper into the ground and makes it available to the tomato plants.

Organic fertilizer is composed of several sorts of nutrients, such as composted fertilizer grain, blood meal, seaweed lime and lava meal. I have compiled this composition over the years in such a way that my tomato plants grow very well and give delicious juicy fruit.

Would you like to give your tomatoes my organic fertilizer? 

Here is my recipe for 1 kg of organic tomato fertilizer:

- 600 grams of composted fertilizer granules.

- 400 grams Vivikali

Mix and it’s ready for use. 😊

Besides this, I try to give my plants some compost tea once every 2 weeks. It gives the soil life a boost and the tomatoesget a good shot of lots of valuable substances. You can read everything to do with compost tea and how to make it in the article: “Compost tea, what was that again?”

Through the compost, organic fertilizer and compost tea you get a rich and diverse soil flora. The soil flora include many tiny‘creatures’, such as bacteria and fungi. These micro-organisms help plants absorb all the nutrients contained in compost and organic fertilizer. Because the plants absorb minerals and other substances better, the taste of the tomatoes becomes richer and fuller. And that's why I grow tomatoes. 😊

No of course not. I might have got a bit carried away, but I want to grow the most delicious (especially sweet) tomatoes. Now you know what I do,and you can choose to do the things that suit yourself. Try experimenting and taking it all step by step.