Gardening Tips: How to grow tomatoes in a small space

Alex, beginning of May, great time to plant some tomatoes. We’ve got a small space. How do we do that? That’s right. So people are always asking me, how can I grow my tomatoes in a small space? I have the exact same problem, small little condo, small little balcony. But I found a great solution. So what we’re going to do today is we’re going to plant up an entire planter focused on tomatoes and companion plants with tomatoes. So the first thing when we’re doing up our planter, the most important thing is choosing the tomatoes. So we’re going to pick a tomato, which is a determinate variety. Now that’s a big word. But what that means is it’s going to grow to a determined height and functionally will stay a lot smaller than the alternative, which is an indeterminate tomato. So this one particular I’ve chosen is called Patio, one of my absolute favorites because as the name implies, it’s great for growing on the patio. So we’re going to take this guy, we’re going to pop it out of its pot. And first thing that I want to do is I’m actually going to trim off a few of these lower leads, because what that’s going to allow for is I’m going to plant this tomato a little bit deeper. In the pot to allow more roots to grow. So I’m going to take this guy and we’re going to get this ready to pop in just straight here in the back and I’m going to plant this nice and deep. So all the soil gets piled up right around the stem of this tomato allowing for more roots to grow on this stem. So our tomato is now all planted and ready to go. Alex, what kind of companion plants can we use with tomatoes? So we’re going to do a couple of things. So our companion plants are things that are going to provide some sort of benefit. So where I wanted to start was the marigolds. The marigolds are going to be an excellent colorful addition to our planter, and they’re also going to help to repel some common pests, namely aphids. I always run into problems with my aphids, and so I want to plant up some of these marigolds to then make sure that we can repel a lot of those aphids. So I’ll just take these and I’m going to plant them around the base of our tomato and they’re going to form a beautiful, kind of colorful barrier that’s going to help protect us from many of common insects. So we’ve got those all planted. Next for our companion plants are going to be some garlic chives. These are also going to be a great way to repel some common insects, but you also get to harvest some nice chives out of there, plus they get a beautiful flower on there. So lots of great things going on with this companion plant, the garlic chives and our last companion plant is going to be basil. So this one always a great companion to go with tomatoes. What I really like about this is it’s such a fantastic combination both to make, salads to make. Caprizi salad, for example, also going to help to repel some insects. And then there’s people who say that the basal will actually make the tomatoes taste better. So an excellent addition to our little planter. Here. Great ways to plant tomatoes in a small space. Thank you so much, Alex. Thank you.