Tomato

Sowing: Tomato is typically started indoors from seed five to six weeks before the outdoor planting date, or set out as purchased transplants once the danger of frost has passed and soil has warmed. It wants full sun of at least six hours daily, ideally eight to ten, in loamy, well-drained soil with a slightly acidic pH between roughly 5.8 and 6.8, and it is commonly spaced 18 to 36 inches apart depending on whether plants will be staked or caged. Because tomato roots readily form along a buried stem, growers often strip the lower leaves and set transplants deeper than they grew in the pot to encourage a stronger root system, and it can also be grown in containers of at least five gallons with one plant per pot.

Watering: The root zone should be kept consistently moist through deep, regular watering, especially once blossoms begin to form, since uneven moisture is linked to fruit problems. Feeding is needed regularly, but heavy nitrogen fertilizer favors leafy growth at the expense of fruit, so many gardeners use a starter fertilizer at transplanting and side-dress once the first fruits appear.

Support and pruning: Staking, caging, or trellising keeps sprawling stems and heavy fruit off the ground, reduces fruit rot, and eases harvest, though plants can also be left to sprawl over thick mulch where space allows. Removing sucker shoots that arise in the leaf axils, particularly those near the base, is a common practice to concentrate growth into fewer main stems and produce larger, earlier fruit. Rotating tomato plantings away from ground where other nightshade-family crops have recently grown, roughly every three to four years, is recommended to limit soil-borne disease buildup.

Tomato draws a wide range of insect pests, including stink bugs, cutworms, hornworms, aphids, cabbage loopers, whiteflies, fruit worms, flea beetles, spider mites, slugs, and the Colorado potato beetle. It is also susceptible to numerous diseases such as blights, verticillium wilt, fusarium wilt, tobacco mosaic virus, and other bacterial and viral infections, which is part of why growers are advised to avoid replanting nightshades in the same soil for several years.

Blossom end rot and fruit cracking are physiological disorders rather than pest or pathogen problems: blossom end rot is associated with inconsistent watering and low soil calcium, while cracking follows uneven watering or sudden shifts in moisture from weather.

Fruit is typically ready for picking two to three months after seed sowing, though some types take four to five months, and counted from transplanting, tomato generally reaches maturity in about 65 to 90 days. A single plant can yield roughly 10 to 15 pounds or more of fruit over a season, with row plantings reported at 15 to 45 pounds per 10-foot row.

Culinary: Tomato fruit is eaten fresh or preserved by freezing and canning, and it is worked into sauces, soups, and salsas, making it one of the most widely grown vegetables in home gardens.

Cultural and historical: Tomato has long been woven into food traditions, from Aztec salsas combining tomato, chilies, and squash to its use as a base for cocktails such as the Bloody Mary and in dishes like pizza, salad, tomato soup, and the BLT across many cuisines. It also carries symbolic and festive associations, including Spain's La Tomatina tomato-throwing festival, the Dutch Socialist Party's tomato emblem recalling its use as a protest object, and the Southern American dish of fried green tomatoes, which traces to Jewish immigrant cooking in the northeastern United States before becoming associated with the South.

Tomato traces its origin to Central and South America, with wild relatives native to the Andean region of Peru. Its domestication is understood to have proceeded through two stages, involving Solanum pimpinellifolium and the semi-domesticated Solanum lycopersicum var. cerasiforme as ancestral forms before cultivated tomato took shape. Following Spanish colonization, tomato spread from the Americas to Europe and eventually worldwide, becoming an economically significant crop from the 16th century onward.