Tomato Care

My baby tomatoes are growing up.  From tomato seeds, I germinated them.  After a week or so, I transplanted the little seedlings into a new bed.  I may have moved them too early, since they looked shocked for a while.  But now, most of them are upright and growing again.

While I'm still waiting for them to become big ass plants, I did my little research and found some interesting facts (not necessarily related to tomato care).

• Some big tomato plants can self fertilize by catching insects on their hairy stems!  Now that is a sight to see.  Vengeance on you bugs for eating my various plants!! 
• Pinch tomato plants so that it bears bigger fruit instead of growing so many leaves.  This fact seems to be true for a lot of plants. 
• For propagating tomato plants, you can actually stick a stem into the soil and it will grow new roots. This I've got to see!
• If you see some rotting in your tomato plant, that may be a sign of calcium deficiency.  Put some crushed eggshells in to help with this situation.  I'm already trying this on some other plants just for fun. 
• This is very cool.  You can grow tomatoes upside down!  Get a bucket.   Put a hole in the bottom.  Put in your tomato plant in (inverted okay?).  Fill the bucket with gardening soil.  Hang the bucket as you would hanging pots.  The tomatoes will then attempt to curl up towards the sunshine.  I will definitely try this when my tomatoes are bigger. 
• Tomatoes have antioxidants like Vitamin C and Lycopene
• When the plant is in bloom, shake it once in a while so the pollen spreads and you get new plants. 
• If you happen to break a stem (like decapitating), there's a chance your tomato plant will still survive.  Just bury it under the soil above the point where broke.  
• Grow tomatoes with basil.  It improves the taste and repels insects.

And that's it!  Any tips or fun tomato facts you'd like to add?

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