What do I do with tomato plants?

I am in my first year of SFGing.  I am in my first year of vegetable gardening altogether.....I planted two tomato plants last week in my box, that I bought at a local nursery.  They are both about 12" tall now, and both are starting to blossom.  I don't think they should be flowering already, should they?

Two big confusions for me:
1. What do I do with the plant?  How do I "train" it onto a trellis?  There's talk in the book about weaving tomato plants onto a trellis, but I can't find information about literally how to do that.  The plants aren't even tall enough to reach the trellis yet! 

2. Should I pinch off the flowers? I remember something about clipping off the "side stems" or something, and letting one main stem grow, but I'm not sure if I remember correctly, and it seems like that will limit the number of tomatoes that grow.  I have the vague impression that if I let it form tomatoes now the plant won't grow any more.  (My bell pepper plant is also flowering already, only 14" tall; is that normal?)

I'm boggled by those who are posting they are harvesting things already! I just got everything in the ground, and I had to skip lettuce because I started too late, I think.  My parsley and chives haven't sprouted yet, my scallions are barely showing, beets, radishes, carrots, beans, squash, cucumbers are still tiny seedlings.

Hi, Guinevere. First, I just noticed your general location. Anywhere near Mountain Home?

1. Trellising tomatoes: When they are tall enough, you can loosely tie or clip to a vertical string on the trellis.

2. I am one of those people that don't intentionally remove early, low flowers. The only ones I remove are those that might touch the soil. Even though I mulch with E-Z Straw, I just prefer they don't grow at ground level. Leaving first fruits on will not stop the plant from growing. By the end of the summer, you will be sick with the never-ending harvests. It is fine for a 14" pepper plant to have a pepper. especially if the plant is supported with a stake or medium tomato cage. Remove it or leave it, your choice.

Have you checked with your County Master Gardeners or Ag Extension for a vegetable planting guide? It should help you with the proper direct sowing and indoor early seed starting for your area.

Tomatoes are indeterminate, determinate, or dwarf/patio. Determinate are bushier and are usually supported with a tomato cage or stakes. They can take up an area of 9 square feet or at least 4 if planted in a South corner. They tend to produce a lot of tomatoes withing a short time.
Great for canners. Indeterminate can be pruned to just the main stem, and a daughter/sucker as a second stem if one wants. Indeterminates produce all season long, right up the stem(s). Dwarf/patio are smaller, compact plants that generally produce all summer. The fruits are smallish but bigger than cherry tomatoes.

So helpful, thanks! I am fairly sure both my plants are indeterminate.  One is "Mortgage Lifter," a large tomato, and the other is a cherry tomato variety.  I have them staked now, to protect from the wind.  We have had ferocious winds here in March and April.  It's my first year in Arkansas, so I don't have a good handle on the timing of things and the weather yet.  (I'm about two hours west of Mountain Home, in Bella Vista.)  I'll just keep waiting until they are tall enough to reach the trellis.

I haven't mulched, because I wasn't sure if I can put mulch on before the seeds sprout, and now the seedlings are so small I think I'll smother them if I mulch.  But I can put mulch around the larger plants, and I guess I should, because with the heat and wind the soil dries out on top very quickly.

I do have a good planting timing guide for my area, but as I'm new to this, and not used to spring happening before May (I was in New England for years), I got caught behind.  And I'm not experienced enough to start my own seeds indoors yet, so some things I think I should have transplanted I just sowed right into the garden, and probably too late.  I figure this year will be somewhat of a wash, as I learn, and next year I should have a better handle on the timing. 

On another note, the flower boxes I installed in front of my house last fall, my "practice" SFG beds, are booming!  I planted mums in the fall, and I thought they were dead, and now they are coming back vigorously, and the violas I planted as a winter annual are still thriving and blooming, and have begun freely seeding themselves in the rest of the SFG bed and all over my lawn.   I think it's safe to say plants really do love Mel's Mix!  I used it in my patio containers last month, and those flowers are all growing well, too.  I wish I could board in my whole property and fill it with MM!

Regarding seeds and tiny seedlings, I use 1" sections of TP and PT rolls over the seed spots and leave them on until the seedling is strong enough to handle mulch.  I use ready-to-use E-Z Straw with Tack from Tractor Supply.  It's fine enough to put straw in little rows between seed spots and little seedlings or around TP/PT rolls. If your seedlings are still small enough maybe you can slip rolls over them and mulch around. I water the straw mulch around the site and it seems to keep the seed spots moist/wet for sprouting.

Conversely, in the spring I pull back the winter mulch to let the MM warm up for a few days before sowing beans and planting starts that are ready to go into the beds.

My first year of SFG was the great experiment. I learned so much. And made 2 really bad mistakes.

Photo of broccoli seeding in October.


Photo of emerging lettuce.

Excellent ideas; I'll try the TP tubes.  I have some EZ straw from last fall that I never ended up using over the winter.  I covered the beds instead with a canvas tarp to keep out the digging creatures that would have dug up the straw and the beds.  

Teaser, the two "really bad mistakes!"  What were they?  I'm probably doing one or both!

The first mistake I made getting started.  I used Kellogg's Soil Amendment for the compost part instead of real composts.  The plants stopped growing at 4 weeks (when the fertilizer in the amendment ran out, I guess).  The folks on this Forum helped me troubleshoot and that was the beginning of my search for good composts and home composting.

The second was thinking winter squash were to be grown in the winter.   First freeze and they were a horrible mess. 12-4-13


I think they also had powdery mildew.


Every year since I have made some mistake and learned a whole lot. That's why I tell people we learn more from our mistakes than our successes. A success may be accidental, a failure is something we did wrong and can change.

Take notes!  The first year, especially in a new locale, will have a steep learning curve!

Guinevere. your post took me way back many years to my first garden by myself. i was already a fairly competent gardener as a young teenager. I had helped my grandparents in their truck patch. So I had 7-8 years of pretty serious gardening under my belt. 

I forgot everything when I was on my own. My mother straightened me out by telling me that I had a lifetime to learn and make mistakes. And I've made a bunch over the years. I can remember my first tomato, (a heart) I was so proud. Have no idea what the name was. 

I spent all day in the garden, got a lot done. My Siberian tomatoes are blooming, 15+ inches tall. I love Mel's Mix, planted all kinds of things and never once used a trowel. Just bought a Birdie's raised bed and needed some course vermiculite. Co-op just had the one. Lucky me.   Just remember to mulch everything, even in the winter and grow lots of flowers. Good luck down South and keep an eye out for tornados.

SMEDLEY BUTLER wrote: Just remember to mulch everything, even in the winter and grow lots of flowers. Good luck down South and keep an eye out for tornados.

"Mulch everything."  I did, yesterday, with EZ Straw bought last fall and unused until yesterday.  I mulched happy, green, healthy seedlings of beans, and a pepper and a tomato plant, both blooming and booming, all having been in the ground for up to three weeks prior with everything hunky-dory.

Today, my bean seedlings are sad, dark, limp, pathetic stalks, the tomato leaves are turning brown and limp, and the pepper plant is limp and going brown.



I didn't use barriers between the seedlings and the mulch. . . .did I kill my plants by not doing so?  I thought seeds were supposed to grow up through the straw, so I had no qualms about putting straw around; the EZ Straw seemed so light and innocuous!

Will this go down as my first big mistake?

Embarrassed....so, yeah, the temps here got down to 32°F last night. . . .my poor seedlings froze, it wasn't the mulch.  I guess I should have mulched thicker! 

Maybe my tomatoes won't completely die...
I can replant beans...

Note to self: check nightly temps through April......the night before, not the morning after!

I've been in the exact same spot you are in now. It's not really funny but I am kind of chuckling as I type this. Do not despair, the world is not about to end. I keep several portable cloches ( kind of like low tunnels) that I covered everything with plus several shipping blankets that we hung from the trellises. Took them down this morning, no damage at all. 

I push the frost date, 17 April here, trying to get a ripe tomato in May. Never had one, but I have been close. Good luck, be brutal about it, rip them all out and start over. You have plenty of time.

I think I saw a baby tomato on the Siberian tomatoes this morning. I was so happy that I brought the wife out when she got back from exercise. I don't think that she was as excited as I was.

Many years ago, we had a frost in late May. This was before instant weather and iPhones. It may have even been before Mel invented SFG. I think the onions was about the only survivor.