Photo: Fotokostic (Shutterstock)
This year is my first year as a gardener. I think it’s going well, especially considering that in the past I’ve killed every houseplant I’ve ever kept alive (even air plants). Soon I’ll have fed corn, tomatoes, and a really ridiculous amount of tomatillos, and I’m excited.
Although I’ve learned a lot, I was hesitant to write about gardening because it’s a very complicated subject and the people who care about it are very interested in it (and I don’t want to piss them off). But then I saw this little tomato tip on Twitter yesterday and it was honestly too good not to share.
I don’t know who plant expert Sean is, but his tip matches what my neighbor keeps telling me: It’s about energy. According to Sean, “a fat tomato near the bottom of the plant will take up most of the nutrients it produces. So when it is close to ripening, pick it and let it ripen in a paper bag with a banana / apple inside, and more energy will be added to the tomatoes higher up. “
This is in line with what my neighbor told me about branches of tomato plants: cut off the large ones – as long as they don’t have flowers – at the bottom of the plant so that it grows taller.
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Again, this is my first year with any type of garden – and my first year keeping plants alive – so I haven’t done parallel gardening studies to test all of this new information, but I’m going to be the big boys of the ground of my tomato plants as soon as they approach the maximum strip. (I want all of my tomatoes to get as much nutrients and energy as possible, but I’m also very impatient.)
