hey everyone this week on the show we're talking about a crop that a lot of growers
grow differently and i'll be sharing you some of the insights about how we grow field tomatoes
so perhaps you've seen in the other youtube videos uh how we do greenhouse tomatoes you know this is
greenhouse tomatoes is a big focus for for us on the farm it's a big focus of what i've been
teaching to a lot of growers also because it's the number one money-making crop on the farm
but field tomatoes also play an important part in the season because they're a lot cheaper to grow
in terms of investment and in terms of time and that's really the key factor here about the way
we grow field tomatoes that is we want to invest as little time as possible and put that time to
do certain things that are really required and needed and so the first thing is that we grow them
on landscape fabric so that keeps the moisture really nice we can put our drip tapes underneath
and we won't need to be coming and weeding them or cultivating them so
we front load the whole uh fertility at the start so that means that we won't be bothering
with with side dressing further on we're front loading and then we're transplanting crops that
are really nice so transplant that are the right size starting at the right time so the process
that we offer that we do here at the farm is that we stake them and we will trace them as they grow
and we want to prune them only once we want to take the suckers out only once and then we'll
just leave them kind of wild and we'll do first pruning is below the first cluster of fruits
we'll take all the suckers out from underneath and that's going to give the plant enough energy
for it to kind of grow its plant and then not overload the plant with fruits and then there's
one last operation is that about five weeks before uh either first frost or last market
or whenever we want to kind of stop the process we'll we'll take the heads out so
let's say this is the head so we'll simply cut the head out
and that's going to give the signal to the plant to start and and really put all the
energy and all the fruits that's already on the plant there's a lot of growers that have
fungal or diseases on the leaf that's why we use these caterpillar tunnels you know we've
i did another video about how we move them around this is one reason why we have these caterpillar
tunnels is to move them on the nightshades for the summer we leave pretty much everything open
but one of the thing here is that the rain doesn't come directly on the leaves and that's the number
one entry point for a lot of diseases is when the leaves are moist for too long
so other growers in other area could have shade clots that could also be a winning strategy using
those same caterpillar tunnels but all in all the name of the game with the field tomatoes
is to invest a lot of energy at the start of them and then we pretty much leave them
to themselves and we'll have a few weeks of really nice bumper crops that we bring at farmer's market
obviously you want to have different varieties varieties that people don't know of some that are
more spectacular than others taste is really important that's really where field tomatoes
out compete some of the greenhouse tomatoes and for us the trick is to
have the field tomatoes kick in at a time where we'll have less greenhouse tomatoes so all in all
low maintenance high quality but learning how to set them up is super important
so that's it for this week's video don't forget guys there's a cheat sheet that you can download
about how to prune your tomatoes to grow them on two heads with two liters it's a great way to save
money on the seeds and to have more productivity hope you liked this week's episode i'll see you
next week don't forget to subscribe to the channel it gives me the signal that you guys are into it
and that i should keep posting what i have to offer hope you guys are well j i'm out
you