Facebook story: Tips for growing tomatoes

There is an old saying that “tomatoes don’t like wet feet”, but in Le-Roy Engelbrecht’s garden he says during the hot summer heat, he floods his plants. However, there is one thing he doesn’t do.

He said,”I never use a sprinkler or anything like that, I used to but I don’t anymore”.

By flooding his plants, it prevents water on top from burning his plants.

But at 79 years old even an experienced gardener can have problems.

Engelbrecht showed us one of his tomatoes that was burned, “actually the sun is burning it and it will eventually rot here on top”, he said.

An easy way to make shade is to plant sunflowers near your tomatoes to protect them from the harsh afternoon sun.

He says it sounds silly now, but the ground stayed cooler this year causing some plants to be less productive, but his tomato plants are a different story.

He told us, “no they’re producing fine, heat does not bother tomatoes very much but big old green worms do”.

One worm ate the entire top off one of his tomatoes.

Another problem he has is with blight, which is a fungus, to avoid that problem, he plants his tomatoes in different spots every year.

Engelbrecht and his wife Doris pick about a dozen tomatoes a day, far more than they need so they give a lot of them away.

A couple of years ago they donated nearly 1,200 pounds of potatoes to the Samaritan Center.

He says gardening is a lot of work, but it’s something he loves to do.

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