Vegetable gardeners have been noticing the mysterious loss of flowers and immature fruits which have been shriveling and falling off of plants such as tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, beans, and squash. Losing a few vegetable blossoms or young fruits isn’t uncommon, especially early in the summer and shouldn’t be a cause for alarm.

I’ve received several questions from gardeners expressing concern over their home grown tomatoes that develop sunken brown spots or black rot on their bottoms which totally ruins the fruit. The probable cause is a disease called Blossom End Rot which affects tomatoes, peppers, squash, and watermelons.

Yesterday I set my tomato transplants out into the garden and thought I’d share the techniques that I use to grow healthy tomato plants indoors. The tomato seeds were planted about six weeks ago and resulted in a dozen healthy transplants for the garden.

If you’re growing tomato plants indoors under lights and want to keep them happy and healthy until they are ready to be transplanted into the garden, then now’s the time to start tickling those tomato seedlings.

It’s not too late to start a few tomato plants indoors for transplanting out into the garden after the soil warms and the danger of frost has passed later this spring. I just wanted to share a few of my favorite gourmet and heirloom tomato varieties.

It’s hard to top a juicy, home grown, vine ripened heirloom tomato, but if you’re not careful when growing tomatoes you may wind up with leggy plants and few tomatoes.
Jerry discovered this the hard way as he commented: “Kenny, I would like to see some tips on growing tomatoes, how deep should I plant them, and why [...]