it’s has been just over a month since planting dave jr. and because i am a newbie to growing tomatoes, i have relied on the interwebs to teach me a thing or two about making him be big, strong and bear beautiful flavorful fruit. there is conflicting advice about whether or not to prune flowers and/or branches at all. one article i read said that it would teach him to continue to grow more flowers, and not bear fruit too soon when he wasn’t strong enough to hold them up. seemed like good advice. i chose to pluck the flower buds until just recently.
most suggested to remove the ‘suckers’ which start to grow in the v between the main stem and other branches. of course, since i didn’t come upon this information until a couple weeks in, the base of dave jr. has become quite full. right around the time i stopped plucking flowers, some yellow leaves started to appear, which concerned me.
i worried i was watering him too much, but after reading more, it could be because i haven’t been watering him enough, there aren’t enough nutrients in his soil, or perhaps he even has a virus. so today i added crumbled up egg shells (for calcium), and some fertilizer (nitrogen) to the top and cultivated it in, gave him a good watering, filled up his reservoir, and trimmed the yellow branches and leaves.
dave sr. didn’t know what kind of tomato dave jr. would produce. the good news is that almost every main branch has flowers on it or at least little tiny buds on them, so hopefully that means lots of fruit this summer, whatever kind that might be.
the anticipation is killing me.
wild, fresh + tasty 
make sure you prepare your soil with felretizir and soak it well before adding your plant. if it is already a plant, make sure it is planted in full sun and that you give it supplements for plants such as Miraclegrow, they offer the stuff in liquid and sticks. tomatoes love calcium enriches soil. if you want to start a tomato plant from see, just take the desired tomato, poke a few holes in it and plant it. i know it sound bizzare, but you see, the meat around the seeds nourishes the seeds and fertilizes it. thats how tomatos reproduce in the wild. good luck with your planting!, oh one more thing, you may want to use a pot to prevent nematoads, they are little bugs that eat your tomatos. i learned all this because im a registered gardener. youll do fine. if i could do it, you definately can.
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thank you so much for your advice! he is a grown plant now, but i have been fertilizing him since the beginning, and adding crushed egg shells to the soil for calcium. the yellowing leaves are the only thing that has me concerned, but so far so good! i really appreciate your comment.
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