Soil Preparation
Where you plant your tomatoes is the first most important factor you do.  Tomatoes like their soil pH around 6.0-6.8(that’s the pH range at which most vegetables grow best).  A sunny location with well drained soil is best.  Afternoon shade is helpful in Southern Utah.  Amend soil with compost and peat moss (which will help lower pH levels) or coconut coir.  If your drainage is sluggish add vermiculite to your soil.  Before planting out your transplants, drench them with a kelp meal tea or kelp extract an hour before planting.  This helps retain soil around the roots, makes the root mass easier to handle and applies a quick feed of soluble fertilizer.  Kelp also helps with transplant shock.

Planting
It’s important to work some fertilizer into the soil at transplanting time to get your tomatoes off to a good start.  At the bottom of the hole or trench, add 2 tablespoons of an organic fertilizer.  Mix in with the soil, cover with about an inch earth.  The tomatoes roots should not come into direct contact with the fertilizer.  The tomatoes roots will grow down to absorb the nutrients gradually.  Some suggestions are: Rock n’ Chicken 2-4-2, Spring Mix 5-6-6, All Purpose 4-6-2, and Rose & Flower Mix 4-8-4 (Yes, it’s good for veggies too!).  I make my own mixture with 1 part Neem Seed Meal, 2 parts Fish Bone Meal and 2 parts Green Sand.    Planting on a cloudy day or late in the evening is best.  Bright sun can harm newly planted transplants.  Keep transplants watered.  New transplants do not have a roots system yet and will require a daily watering for the first week.  

Trench Planting                           
This method is best done in spring before it gets to hot.  Pinch off lower leaves of tomato transplant, lay plant down in trench horizontally, cover roots and entire length of the stem up to the leaves with two or three inches of soil and firm down.  Don’t try to bend the top of the plant up - just push a little pillow of soil underneath to support it.  Mother nature will see that it grows up in the right direction.


Straight Up-and-Down Planting
Leggy seedlings gain the most advantage from deep vertical planting once the weather gets hot and dry.  Because the roots are set in and grow more deeply, quicker than if trench planted.  Pinch off the lower leaves and plant to the depth (straight up-and-down) of the first bottom leaves.

Spacing
You can space plants as close as 12-18 inches if you are staking, caging or trellising them.  If you intend them to sprawl, give them more room, 36 inches.   

Staking
Staking advantages are: It saves space, It keeps vines and tomatoes off the ground with less rotting, you’ll get an earlier harvest, they are easier to pick and each tomato is larger.  Disadvantages to staking are: It takes more time and effort to train and prune, staked tomatoes dry out quicker, staked tomatoes are more susceptible to cracking and sunscald problems.  When staking a tomato plant, try to put the support on the prevailing downwind side so the plant will lean against the support when the wind is blowing hard.

Determinate vs. Indeterminate
Determinate varieties tend to set all their fruits within a relatively short period of time; Indeterminate varieties set a smaller number of fruits at one time, but do so over a longer period of time.  Growing both is a great way to have tomatoes for canning all at once and also to have them throughout the growing season.  Determinates are usually earlier and have a greater chance of escaping the curly top.

Pruning
Pruning means pinching off the shoots or “suckers” that sprout from the stem in the crotch right above a leaf branch.  If you let a sucker grow, it simply becomes another big stem with its own blossoms, fruits and suckers!  With staked or trellised tomatoes, pinch off the suckers and just keep the energy of the plant directed at one (sometimes two or three) main stems.  You will find when the weather warms up you will be pruning twice a week to keep up with it.  If you’re growing determinate varieties of tomatoes, go easy on pruning, if any at all.  Because the plants are smaller and don’t continue to set new fruits throughout the year.  Also be careful not to over prune here in Southern Utah.  The bright sun will cause sunscald.  

Mulching
Mulch is simply a covering over the soil that keeps moisture in, blocks weeds and protects low-growing tomatoes from resting on the ground and developing rot.  Mulches can raise or lower soil temperature, too.  If you use a woody material, such as bark or wood chips as a mulch, it’s a good idea to add some extra nitrogen fertilizer to the soil.  Otherwise the soil microorganisms, which need nitrogen for their own growth, will temporarily tie up the nitrogen your plants need.  You can use straw, pine needles, bagged mulch, or even compost.  I do not suggest using black plastic here.  Because it just adds extra heat to the soil.  Don’t put a heavy mulch to early in the season.  Wait until the ground is warmed up or you can delay the harvest a few weeks.  Mulching reduces the fluctuation of soil moisture and helps the crop enormously.

Feeding                       
Tomatoes are heavy feeders.  They need quite a big food supply over the season.  In most gardens, it’s a good idea to side-dress tomatoes.  That simply means placing fertilizer around the plants to give them extra nourishment through the growing season.  Stray away from high-nitrogen fertilizers.   You want something balanced with the first number being lower then the second and third (like 4-8-4) The fertilizers suggested in the beginning are great.  I like to fertilize every three weeks, 3-4 tablespoons per plant.  Start side-dressing when the first tomatoes have just formed.  Spread in a one inch -deep circular furrow five to six inches away from the stem .  Cover the fertilizer with one to two inches of soil.  Water in.

Watering
Tomatoes require an even supply of water through-out the growing season; an irregular water supply will cause your tomatoes to develop problems, such as blossom end rot.  Water thoroughly to encourage the tomato roots to feed water and nutrients deep in the soil.  With an extensive, deep root system, the plant will hold up better during dry spells.  Water only when needed.  Tomatoes like moisture, but soggy soil will prevent the roots from getting the air they need.  Water early in the day to cut down on evaporation losses and also to give your plants plenty of time to dry out.  Watering with a drip tape or soaker hose is the most efficient.  

Companions
Tomato allies are many: asparagus, basil, bean, carrots, celery, chive, cucumber, garlic, head lettuce, marigold, mint, nasturtium, onion, parsley, pepper and marigold. One drawback with tomatoes and carrots: tomato plants can stunt the growth of your carrots but the carrots will still be of good flavor. Basil repels flies and mosquitoes, improves growth and flavor. Bee balm, chives and mint improve health and flavor. Borage deters tomato worm, improves growth and flavor. Dill, until mature, improves growth and health, mature dill retards tomato growth.

Enemies
corn and tomato are attacked by the same worm. Kohlrabi stunts tomato growth. Keep potatoes and tomatoes apart as they both can get early and late blight contaminating each other. Keep cabbage and cauliflower away from them. Don't plant them under walnut trees as they will get walnut wilt: a disease of tomatoes growing underneath walnut trees.