Lots of home gardeners like to grow tomatoes in their garden. Today Southern Gardening is visiting Jackson Farms Nursery and seeing how they grow tomatoes. Here at Jackson Farms they grow their tomatoes in greenhouses, definitely not your typical backyard planting. The tomatoes are planted in a very high density; this is literally a tomato jungle. Two tomato plants are planted in grow bags filled with container mix. Water and nutrients are supplied throughout the day via the irrigation system. The tomatoes are indeterminate types, meaning they continue to grow and produce fruit. But there isn’t the traditional trellising. The tomato plants are held up using these neat plastic clips attached to string. As the tomatoes grow up, the string is lowered to keep the plants in the optimal growing space. Here’s a Gary Tip: I actually use these same clips in my home garden to hold my tomatoes to the trellis. The lower leaves are removed from the stems to help with air circulation. This allows for ease of picking the clusters of fruit when ripe. Growing tomatoes in greenhouses allows growers to control temperature and other environmental conditions. But this creates a problem for pollination. Normally, garden tomatoes don’t rely on insects for pollination, but greenhouse tomatoes do. Bumblebees are used and are very effective pollinators. Hives are available from greenhouse supply companies. I hope you enjoyed this look at how growers produce gorgeous tomatoes in greenhouse. I’m horticulturist Gary Bachman and I’ll see you next time on Southern Gardening.
