Opened an Olive Garden in Southern Pines, NC. The back door where they unloaded the fresh food had a set of steps in which a cherry tomato germinated in a crevice. We called it the Crack Tomato, and all avoided trampling it. Eventually it flowered, fruited, and I grow seed collected from it every year. All hail Crack Tomato!!

Planting basil in with the tomatoes helps stop white fly too. Plus for indeterminates when planting put handful of pot ash in the hole. They love it

The best tool I’ve found for finding hornworms is a blacklight flashlight. The caterpillars fluoresce under blacklight. Just go out after dark and shine the flashlight on your plants. The plants will look purple and the caterpillars will be glowing lime green. Easy to spot even when they’re small. Amazon sells several kinds, and they’re inexpensive...maybe 10 or 15 bucks.

Hi Nicole, I'm REALLY glad that you've branched out into home gardening. I teach a Horticulture class at Los Gatos High School, and I've shown several of your "How Does it Grow?" episodes to my students in the past. You have an educator's grasp of how much content to deliver at at one time, and and wonderful clarity. I'm learning quite a bit. Keep it coming!

She is still loyal to us till this day . I love it

Nicole, I love your content, and your choice of clothes. Red dress that matches your red tomatoes, yellow dress that matches lemons (in your Italy episode).🍅🍋

I don't know how u heard my mind voice...I planted tomato two days before and I watched your earlier tomato video for planting and now you posted this video for me to understand more...thanks..

OH WOW! this is GREAT tutorial on growing 🍅 tomatoes. THANK YOU Nicole holly for breaking all that HELPFUL info down in just 9 mins. ..Can't wait to to watch the future episode's on your tomato garden :)

The sucker can directly sow into the grown! I ve done it a million time already and it always work. Happy gardening!

She's a cute tomato

I'm a new gardener this year, and this is definitely the most informative video I've come across yet for growing tomatoes. Looks like I've got some work to do! Thank you!

eggshells + vinegar --> will make a pH neutral slurry with bioavailable Ca. I keep all my eggshells, dry them in the oven, and powder them. I mix it in with the soil when I'm planting. But I also have hydroponic lettuce in my kitchen which needs LOTS of Ca too. Thats where to Ca slurry comes in. It's really important to check the pH if you're doing this. It will start off at a pH of around 3 but over a day or so should come to 7 and should bubble the entire time. The bubble are from the CO2 released when the acids in the vinegar react with the CaCO3 in the egg shells. It's also a fun experiment to do with kids to teach them about plants and chemistry.

After years of removing suckers entirely on every variety I've found that cherry tomatoes harvest greatly benefits from leaving only the flowers on the suckers. The technique is not talked about anywhere and it lies between keeping and entirely removing the suckers. You just pinch off the sucker first 3 leaves and leave the flowers cluster after the third leave. I generally cut the growth head at this point unless your plant is very strong. It only applies to tomatoes that grow small fruits. Other big fruits varieties won't produce enough photosynthesis for both main stem fruits and secondary stem fruits.

I'm taking a like to her knowledge. She is making me want to watch these videos. Good job!

My 17 year old twin daughters LOVE the hornworm caterpillar! They raise caterpillars into moths and butterflies. They really dislike those parasitic flies! I have always kept a close eye out for those caterpillars on my tomato plants. I just found your channel. It's very helpful!

Excellent presentation. I’ve gardened for decades and there’s nothing I could add

Great video, Nicole. I'd just like to expand a bit on what you said about pruning suckers on tomato plants (this also applies to other fruits/veggies grown in the garden). If you remove every sucker that spouts, you're likely going to have fewer tomatoes produced by the plant at the end of the season than if you allow a few to grow. If your soil is good, have a decent growing season, sunlight is plentiful, and you have a cage or trellis installed, you'll get many more tomatoes if you selectively preserve shoots that appear close to the soil line. Tomatoes will take longer to set and develop, but your harvests will be much larger. The tomato plants I have this year are allowed 5-7 shoots each. My cherry plants (zone 4B) currently have >100 individual fruits each so far, and my heirloom regular tomato plants have ~2 dozen fruits at various levels of maturity. Previous years I've attempted to remove all the suckers from my plants and I may have had 1-2 dozen cherry tomatoes at this point in the season, and half a dozen regular tomatoes per plant. That said, if you're not growing in optimal conditions then it may make sense to remove all the suckers to get the fruit that do set to plump up and ripen fully before the growing season is finished.

I’m glad you posted this as I have increased my tomato count from last years 2 to 20 this year! Now need to go prune them again. Thanks again!

My favourite gardening tutor,,its a lot easier to listen and learn to the sexy in depth knowledge, acts as a catalyst in attention span. My growing problemis i am 1 human trying to keep up to strategically utilizing thousands of vegetable plants and trying to deal with them,,plant more until fall down

SO glad I found this channel!

You explain it so well.. I am waiting for your harvest.

Adding the stakes to the FL weave is an excellent idea. Mine tend to fall over between the levels of string - especially the first. I'll try that today!

That's a lot of advice to pack in a 10 minute video. Keep up the good work 👍

Mrs. Jolly you girl are a great speaker. Again a great learning experience. Thanks

Outstanding. Probably this video alone has done more for home growers than any of your other excellent videos. Why? Tomatoes are popular. People are hungry to grow tomatoes. Heirloom tomatoes are pricey and the paste tomato is the real mortgage lifter. If you can a good quality productive paste you will have sauces for a long time.

Great! Thank you! Some I knew, some don’t. I raised my tomato plants from Tomatoes I bought in the grocery store. I know them from the seed I got from that tomatoes. They are my babies although not every plant I raised really made it into a mature plant.

Very nice presentation. Succinct and to the point without a lot of pointless rambling like so many youtube gardeners do. Well done!

Such awesome information! Great job. We harvested our first tomato yesterday. My 3 year old was so happy! Hopefully the first of many more

Hey Nicole ! I just wanted to leave a nice comment as I've watched your videos since you've started and I find you very admirable ! Your videos are very educational while also entertaining, and your mannerism is wonderful! It makes me want to also pursue the daily things we take for granted, and do a little more research on them. I'm going to show my mom this video and translate for her since she's also trying to grow tomatoes for the first time and you've done a great job making this guide. Anyway, there's much more nice things I can say, but that'd be too long. I hope you a great future, and continue to do the things you love, and even when times may be tough, I hope you'll be strong and push through it, Thank you so much for being you, as well as making this video so I can share with others who will find its value ! Good day c:

Thanks for all the tips and advice I usually prune my tomatoes 🍅 and get a great harvest........great video

She is a wonderfully looking woman with a great theme for her contenten. Take care of you and provide us with great content.

So excited for the produce !

I love the way a big tomato talking with a name Nicole 😘😘😘

Thankyou so much for the tomato tips..your the best. I also love how your shirt and hair tie matched the subject at hand..tomatoes..lol

Adjusting your soil pH to 6.5 ± 0.5 should also take care of calcium deficiency. If your soil is the wrong pH it can block the uptake of nutrients. Each nutrient has an optimal soil pH range.

This was great..!!! Thank you for all the info!

Can't wait for the harvest!

U r doing a great job and u deserve much more credit for doing this so I'll share the videos as much as I can. Thank u so much.

Looking forward for the harvest vlog. It's therapeutic to me watching harvest videos.

Cool video! I like that trellis technique.

I have worked with tomatoes my whole life, and i can say your tips were just perfect, the only thing i do differently are structures the sustains the plants.

OK, this just happened. I was watching your video and kept hearing Blue Jays. The local Blue Jays have trained me, or I have trained them that when they call I put peanuts out on our deck and they come and get them. So I paused your video when I heard the Blue Jays, and went out on the deck with peanuts. But there were no Blue Jays, so I was a little confused. I turned your video back on and realized it was the Blue Jays in your video that I was hearing. Then, when I was finished, I looked out on the deck and all the peanuts were gone. So my birds were here too. And, by the way, loved the information you gave us on this video.

I love tomatoes 🍅 I love growing them more!

WOW... really good professional advice on tomatoes. You becoming a real farmer yourself Nicole. :) I am very impressed. Great video with good, Practical, and useful info. I am also proud to see you doing it organically. marigolds are an awesome strategy for pests.

Your knowledge is Amazing! Thank you so much for your help.

Yeay Dr. Garden is back

Glad to see this🍅🍅🍅🍅

Love it, very informative video. Right now I have tomatoes in containers. I hope to have a big garden like yours someday.

Some really great tips there Nicole on growing toms! Always enjoy your content (how does it grow series?) such as the visit to Italy on traditional lemon growing...like I said always look out for fresh content from you - thanks!

Nice one. Loved the hairband

Cut the bottom off a clean 2L or larger soda bottle, keep the bottle cap on. Punch holes, in a row down one side, make sure get holes down to the bottom, near the neck.. Plant the bottle next to you tomato plant with the holes facing the plant, leaving about 2 above the soil.. Fill the bottle with the watering can, no rose required, watering done much more quickly.. water immediately hitting 6 ore more inches down, straight to the roots. No splashing, no mess.

I hadn't heard of "Florida weave" before, but I have used this method on 30 plant rows. The part I think you have left out is the actual weaving. If I missed that I apologize but you take your string on one side of one plant then the other side of the next plant. Then you do another line the opposite way. So the lines cross each other in between each plant. Looked like you only have 3 or 4 plants in a row so it worked ok, but on longer rows the weight will be too much. If you weave it plant to plant, the weight of one plant pushing out is counterbalanced by the next plant pushing the other way.

Very informative- all Love from the Philippines

Your garden has turn into mini farm, beautiful.

Great information!!! My tomatoes are 6’+ and overwhelming never new how tall a plant can grow with your method. So trying to Holden up with whatever I can 😀. Happy day from Los Angeles!

Hi Nicole, I so appreciate your helpful tips and beautiful tomatoes 🍅 plants 🌱

Love your videos! So informational. Thank you!

You are adorable!! I LOVE this series!

Great video, Nicole, thanks for sharing your knowledge with us. Also, I was a professional photographer for twenty years and I must say that you are such a natural beauty.

Thank you for the insight.

I like the look of those tomatoes in the thumbnail. Look tasty.

Tomatoes History is very crazy,17'S and 18's that time people got think tomatoes was poison food...........than I told about you videos I really liked.

I love your video! Thanks

This was fascinating; thanks from North Yorkshire England.

Love to do the Florida weave. The only addition I like for wind and as fruit bears weight. I put a horizontal 1x1 laft strip. Every 16inches, up the support stakes. :). You can run additional twin for support, from laft to laft.

Thank you for you knowledge ♥️

You explain everything so well 👍🏼 Subscribed

Great video and keep up the great work 👍

Thanks for your valuable advice

I love the Sweet Hearts grape tomato.

Great video nicole really interesting 👍

Thank you that was very helpful

Great video! Thank you so much for this informative video! I got so much out of it.

Great information. Thanks ❤

I love these tomatoes 😍

Thank you dear Nicole 💕

Love your backyard set up :)

Thank you for this video

Tons of great information--thanks!

Thanks....much needed video!🙏🏼

Thank you for the info! 🍅 ❤️

Rooting the suckers in water makes it more difficult for the plant to transition into soil once it has roots. I recommend using a cloning gel and keeping the cuttings in moist soil in a humid environment. My favorite is a brand called Clonex.

Thank you so much! I am working on a green thumb from a brown thumb. This is so helpful. New subber, here. 💚

A quick way to get calcium- put egg shells in vinegar for 48 hours and then pour it around the base of the plant.

Thank you for sharing

Assalamu alaikum madam.....long time havent seen them.... subhnallah....God really gives.... now back to u presenter.... i'll keep watching

Delightful thank you

I just got tomato for dinner while I was watching this video. :)

Very enriched episode.. Thanks for the information

Tomatoes are one of my favorite things to grow.

Wow,I learned a bunch from this video ! !

Thanks Nicole. I hate cages too, I will try that Florida weave.

I’m not even growing tomatoes this year but you make me want to. 😂 Great advice as always.

You look smashing. And thank you so very much for the video. What growing zone are you in? Looking forward to your harvest video and the variety of tomatoes you grow this year.

Love the outfit... good information. Thank u

Thank you verry much

I grow heirlooms only , hard to grow for sure but man do they taste great .

Very very good advice thanks beautiful

I love your channel! So happy I subscribed!

Thank you