How to Grow Tomatoes: The Complete Guide from Seed to Harvest

Simple step-by-step chart of how to grow tomatoes in a home garden.

Learning how to grow tomatoes is the place most home gardeners start. Tomatoes are the most popular garden crop in North America, and for good reason.

I have been growing vegetables, or helping my parents with our garden, since I was a child. In all that time, I have noticed that in gardening, there is nothing else like the difference between a store-bought tomato and one that ripened on your own vine. Once you have tasted the difference, there is no going back!

Each year we look forward to our first fresh tomato from our garden. Here in the Willamette Valley in Oregon, we are fortunate to get our first ripe tomato by the second half of July. We have a fairly short growing season most years. That is why it was so exciting to find that we could ripen all the green tomatoes left on the vine indoors at the end of the growing season.

Growing tomatoes is not hard. It comes down to a handful of things done well.

• Pick a variety suited to your growing zone.
• Give the plant sun and room.
• Water on a steady schedule.
• Pay attention when something looks off.

This guide covers all of it, from choosing a variety to picking the last green tomatoes before frost. Along the way it links to more detailed pages on containers, yellow leaves, ripening indoors, and what to do with the harvest.

On this page

• Growing tomatoes at a glance
• Choosing a tomato variety
• Heirloom tomatoes: Brandywine and Cherokee Purple
• Determinate vs. indeterminate tomatoes
• Starting from seed or buying transplants
• When to plant tomatoes outdoors
• How to plant tomatoes: the deep planting method
• Spacing tomatoes
• Staking and supporting tomatoes
• How to water tomatoes
• Feeding and fertilizing tomatoes
• Pruning tomatoes: should you remove suckers?
• How to grow tomatoes in containers
• Common tomato problems
• Companion planting for tomatoes
• How to harvest tomatoes
• What to do with green tomatoes
• Preserving the harvest

Growing Tomatoes at a Glance

Choosing the Right Variety
When You Grow Tomatoes

Chart of common tomato varieties for home gardening use.

There are hundreds of tomato varieties. They differ in size, flavor, disease resistance, growth habit, and days to harvest.

A good rule of thumb is to plant one reliable, well-known variety alongside anything new you want to try. That way you are sure of a harvest even if the new one struggles.

If you are learning how to grow tomatoes for the first time, start with cherry tomatoes. They ripen earliest, produce the most, and forgive small mistakes. Sungold and Sweet Million are two of the most dependable.

Paste tomatoes have meaty, low-moisture flesh. They are the better choice if you plan to can or freeze your harvest.

Close-up of ripe cherry tomatoes on the vine.

Heirloom Tomatoes:
Brandywine and Cherokee Purple

Popular heirloom tomato varieties to grow at home: Cherokee Purple, Brandywine, and Yellow Brandywine.

Heirloom tomatoes are open-pollinated varieties that have been passed down for generations.

They are loved for rich, old-fashioned flavor.

They also take longer to ripen and crack more easily than modern hybrids.

Pairing one heirloom with a dependable hybrid is a good way to enjoy the flavor without risking the whole harvest.

Brandywine is the classic pink beefsteak, dating to the 1880s.

The fruits are large, often a pound or more, with a sweet, complex flavor many gardeners consider the best there is.

It is an indeterminate vine with potato-leaf foliage. Give it a tall, sturdy support and a long season.

Brandywine needs 80 to 90 days from transplant, so in cooler climates start it early and plant it in your warmest spot.

Yellow Brandywine is the same plant with golden fruit and a milder flavor.

Cherokee Purple is a dusky purple-brown beefsteak with green shoulders and a deep, smoky sweetness.

It ripens a little earlier than Brandywine, around 75 to 80 days, and sets fruit more reliably in heat.

The color fools beginners.

A ripe Cherokee Purple looks almost bruised on top.

Pick it when the bottom of the fruit gives slightly to pressure, not when the shoulders turn red, because they never will.

• Both heirlooms crack in wet weather after a dry spell.
• Steady watering and a thick mulch are the best prevention.
• Both are worth saving seed from, since heirlooms grow true from seed year after year.

Determinate vs. Indeterminate Tomatoes

Comparison chart of determinate vs indeterminate tomato plants.

This one distinction affects spacing, support, pruning, and when you get your harvest. Every seed packet and plant tag tells you which type you have.

Determinate, or bush, tomatoes grow to a set height and stop. Their fruit ripens over two or three weeks, all at once. That makes them the right choice for canning and for small spaces.

Indeterminate, or vining, tomatoes keep growing until frost kills them. They produce fruit all season long.

Most cherry tomatoes and most heirlooms are indeterminate.

Gardeners who want fresh tomatoes all summer prefer indeterminates.

Starting Tomatoes from Seed or Buying Transplants

When learning how to grow tomatoes, you can start them from seed indoors 6 to 8 weeks before your last frost, or buy young plants from a garden center in spring. Both work.

Starting from seed gives you hundreds of varieties you will never find as transplants. It costs far less per plant. Sow seeds a quarter inch deep in seed-starting mix. Keep them warm. Tomato seed germinates best at 70 to 80 degrees F. Keep the mix moist but not soggy. Seedlings come up in 5 to 10 days and need a sunny window or grow lights right away.

Buying transplants is the easiest way to grow tomatoes, and it is fine for most home gardeners. Look for compact, dark green plants 6 to 8 inches tall with thick stems. Skip leggy, pale plants and anything with spots or insects. Harden off purchased plants by setting them outside in a sheltered spot for a few hours a day for a week before planting.

Find your last frost date with our free interactive zone finder. Count back 6 to 8 weeks from it for your seed-starting date.

Find your USDA zone and last frost date with the Zone Finder

Click image to use our interactive zone finder tool.

When to Plant Tomatoes Outdoors

Orange cherry tomatoes growing on the vine.

Tomatoes are a warm-season crop. Frost kills them.

Never plant them outside until your last frost date has passed and nights stay above 50 degrees F.

When learning how to grow tomatoes, planting too early is the most common mistake beginning gardeners make.

Cold soil stops a tomato cold, even without frost.

A plant set out in cold soil in April is usually passed by one set out in warm soil in late May.

Wait for the warmth. Your plants will catch up and pass the early ones.

If you live in a warm climate and want to try a second late-season planting, the same rule applies in reverse.

Plants need enough warm days left to ripen before fall nights drop below 50.

How to Plant Tomatoes: The Deep Planting Method

Graphic showing how to plant a tomato transplant deeply in the garden.

Tomatoes are one of the few vegetables that like to be planted deeper than they grew in the pot.

Tiny hairs along the stem turn into roots once they are buried.

A deeply planted tomato builds a bigger root system, which means faster growth, better drought resistance, and more fruit.

Pick the sunniest spot you have. Tomatoes need at least six hours of direct sun. More is better.

Work compost or well-aged manure into the soil first. Tomatoes are heavy feeders and do best in rich, well-drained ground.

• Dig a hole deep enough to bury two-thirds of the plant.
• Pinch off the lower leaves that would end up underground.
• Set the plant in the hole so the top third sticks out.
• Mix a handful of compost and a sprinkle of bone meal into the fill soil.
• Firm the soil around the stem and water well.

For a very leggy transplant, dig a shallow trench 3 to 4 inches deep instead. Lay the plant on its side and bend the tip gently upward. Roots form all along the buried stem within days.

Many gardeners add crushed eggshells or a handful of gypsum to the hole for calcium. It helps prevent blossom end rot later in the season.

Put the cage, stake, or trellis in at planting time. Adding it later damages roots and wrestles a plant that has already sprawled.

Spacing Tomatoes for Best Results

Tomato ripening on the vine.

Spacing is where many people learning how to grow tomatoes go wrong.

Crowded tomato plants compete for water, food, and light.

Worse, poor air movement between them invites disease.

Give them room!

Staking and Supporting Tomato Plants

Tomato plant growing inside a cage in a vegetable garden.

Every tomato plant needs support. It is the step most people skip when learning how to grow tomatoes.  An unsupported plant sprawls on the ground, where slugs and rot get the fruit and wet leaves get disease.

A tomato cage is the simplest choice for bush and cherry types. Buy heavy-duty cages. The light wire cones sold everywhere collapse under a full-grown plant.

A single stake works for any type. Drive a 6-foot stake a foot into the ground at planting time. Tie the main stem loosely with soft ties every 12 inches as it grows.

A trellis or Florida weave is the efficient choice for a row of indeterminate plants. Run twine between posts in a weave pattern as the plants grow.

A tripod of three canes tied at the top looks good and holds one plant well.

Plan on at least 6 feet of support for indeterminate varieties. When a vine reaches the top, pinch out the growing tip. That sends the plant's energy into ripening the fruit it already has.

How to Water Tomatoes

How to water tomato plants through the season in your vegetable garden.

Steady watering matters more for tomatoes than for almost any other vegetable. It is the single most important skill in how to grow tomatoes well.   

Blossom end rot, cracked fruit, and poor fruit set all trace back to uneven moisture more than to any other cause. The goal is even moisture all season. Never soggy, never bone dry.

Tomatoes need 1 to 2 inches of water a week. In hot weather that means watering every 2 to 3 days in the ground, and every day in containers. Use the finger test. Push a finger 2 inches into the soil. If it is dry, water. If it is still moist, wait.

• Water at the base of the plant, never over the top. Wet leaves are the main cause of early blight and late blight.
• Water deeply. A slow soak that reaches 6 to 8 inches down beats a quick daily sprinkle. Deep water grows deep roots, and deep roots handle dry spells.
• Water in the morning so any splash on the leaves dries before evening.

Mulch 3 inches deep with straw, shredded leaves, or wood chips. Mulch holds moisture, evens out soil temperature, and can cut watering in half.

A soaker hose or a simple drip line is the best watering setup for tomatoes. It puts water at the roots, keeps leaves dry, and runs on a timer. For anyone serious about tomatoes, it is the one piece of equipment worth buying.

Feeding and Fertilizing Tomatoes

How to fertilize tomato plants in your garden.

Tomatoes are heavy feeders. They need steady nutrition all season to produce well. Getting the balance right is the part most people miss.

Too much nitrogen is the most common feeding mistake. A general all-purpose fertilizer used all summer grows a big, dark green, leafy plant with very little fruit.

Once flowers appear, switch to a tomato or flowering-plant fertilizer that is low in nitrogen and high in potassium.

Cluster of cherry tomatoes on the vine.

For organic feeding, compost tea or fish emulsion every two weeks works well early on.

Once fruit sets, a side dressing of compost and a sprinkle of kelp meal or wood ash supplies potassium without the nitrogen.

Keep an eye on the leaves all season.

Yellow leaves can mean watering trouble, a nutrient shortage, or disease.

It can also be a sign of normal, natural aging of your tomato plant.

See our page on why tomato leaves turn yellow for the seven most common causes and what to do about each.

Why Are My Tomato Leaves Turning Yellow?

Pruning Tomatoes: Should You Remove Suckers?

Tomatoes ripening on the vine.

Suckers are the shoots that grow in the angle between the main stem and a branch.

Left alone, each one becomes a full new stem.

On an indeterminate plant that means a big, bushy, many-stemmed vine by August.

Whether to remove them is a real debate among experienced growers.

The case for pruning:

• Fewer stems are easier to support.
• Open plants get more air and less disease.
• The plant puts its energy into fewer, larger, earlier fruits.

That last point matters most in short-season climates, where ripening before frost is the challenge.

The case against: more stems mean more leaves, more photosynthesis, and often more total fruit.

Every sucker removed was a potential cluster of tomatoes.

And on determinate varieties, removing suckers cuts the yield outright.

My practical rule: For indeterminate varieties, remove all suckers below the first flower cluster to keep the base open and airy.

Above that, decide how many stems you want, usually one or two, and remove suckers on the rest. For determinate varieties, do not prune at all.

How to Grow Tomatoes in Containers

Tomatoes make excellent container plants. If you are short on garden space, learning how to grow tomatoes in a few pots in a sunny spot will give you plenty of fruit. The keys are pot size, steady watering, and regular feeding.

Use a 5 gallon container for compact tomato plant varieties.

Use a 10-gallon pot at minimum for cherry tomatoes and 15 to 20 gallons for larger varieties. Fill it with quality potting mix, never garden soil, and stir in a slow-release fertilizer at planting.

Cherry tomatoes and compact determinate types do best in pots. Tumbling Tom, Patio, and Bush Early Girl are all good choices, as is anything labeled compact or container.

Set a cage over the plant the day you transplant it.

Container tomatoes dry out fast. In hot weather, check them every day. Start weekly liquid feeding as soon as flowers appear, because pots run out of nutrients much faster than garden beds.

Our complete guide to how to grow tomatoes in containers covers pot choice, soil mixes, and watering in more detail.

Tomato plants growing in clay pots.

Complete guide to growing tomatoes in containers

Common Tomato Problems and How to Fix Them

Most tomato problems are preventable. Steady watering, good spacing, watering at the base, and not planting too early head off the majority of them before they start.

The University of Minnesota Extension has excellent guidance on diagnosing tomato disorders and diseases, with photos of each.

Growing tomatoes in home gardens, University of Minnesota Extension

Companion Planting for Tomatoes

Companion planting vegetables chart.

What you plant near your tomatoes matters when learning how to grow tomatoes. Good neighbors deter pests and make better use of the bed. Bad neighbors share diseases or compete.

Basil is the classic tomato companion. Its oils repel thrips, aphids, and whiteflies. Plant one basil per tomato.

French marigolds suppress the soil nematodes that attack tomato roots. Plant a border of them around the bed.

Carrots and parsley both grow well in the shade of tomato plants, and parsley draws beneficial insects.

Keep potatoes away. They are in the same family and share the same diseases, including blight. Give them separate beds and rotate both every year. Keep fennel away too. It stunts tomatoes. And keep corn at a distance, since the corn earworm and the tomato fruitworm are the same pest.

Our companion planting chart covers tomatoes and every other vegetable.

See our Companion Planting Vegetables Chart for more information on companion planting!

How to Harvest Tomatoes

Young gardeners love to help in the garden!

A vine-ripened tomato has the best flavor. But fruit left on the vine too long cracks and draws pests. The sweet spot is when the fruit is fully colored but still slightly firm. It finishes ripening on the kitchen counter in a day or two.

• Never put tomatoes in the refrigerator.
• Cold ruins the flavor, and it does not come back.
• To keep the harvest coming, pick regularly.
• A plant with ripe fruit on it slows down.
• Keep feeding weekly through the fruiting period.
• Pull off old or diseased leaves.

And keep the water steady right to the end of the season, because a plant that dries out and then gets soaked will crack every fruit on it.

When the Season Ends:
What to Do with Green Tomatoes

Click image to go to our page on how to ripen green tomatoes indoors.

Most years the season ends before everything on the vine has ripened.

You don't have to let all those beautiful green tomatoes go to waste.

Pick them all before the first frost.

Green tomatoes ripen indoors at room temperature over two or three weeks, and with a little care you can be eating fresh tomatoes into December.

Our page on ripening green tomatoes indoors walks through the simple method.

How to Ripen Green Tomatoes Indoors

Preserving the Tomato Harvest

One or two plants will give you plenty to eat, with enough left over for canning or freezing.

One or two healthy plants will produce more tomatoes than most families can eat fresh. The rest can be canned, frozen, or made into sauce and juice for the winter.

• Canning Tomato Sauce
• Canning Tomato Juice
• Freezing Tomatoes

Click image to go to our free interactive garden planner tool.

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