Please make sure JavaScript is enabled.

Before You Leave…

Download the GardenTags App today and join 100,000+ gardeners getting FREE plant identification, garden management and more!

no thanks

 
Tomato in the GardenTags plant encyclopedia

Solanum lycopersicum syn. Lycopersicon lycopersicum

 

Tomato

Tomatoes - which are, scientifically speaking a fruit, not a vegetable, but are used as a culinary vegetable - are cultivated as cherry, plum, beefsteak and common round, and there are many different varieties of each type. Best results are achieved for all varieties if grown under glass. Tomatoes are typically fruiting vines. Cordon types will grow up to 1.8m when supported on a stake, or string. Shrub varieties do not need supporting. Yellow flowers are held on trusses and produce up to 10 fruits (or more, in the case of cherry tomatoes). Cordon types need to have side shoots pinched out at leaf joints. Careful watering is a must to stop fruit splitting and for flavour. Keep water off the foliage as blight can be a problem.

 
plant Features
  • Tomato likes full sun

    Full sun

  • Tomato likes occasional watering

    Occasional watering

  • Tomato is not frost hardy

    Not Frost hardy

  • Tomato likes rich and free draining

    Rich and free draining

 
plant information

Common name

Tomato

Latin name

Solanum lycopersicum syn. Lycopersicon lycopersicum

type

Fruiting Vine

family

Solanaceae

ph

5.0 - 7.0 Acid - Neutral

  • Light

    Tomato likes full sun

    Full sun

  • Frost

    Tomato is not frost hardy

    Not Frost hardy

  • Soil

    Tomato likes rich and free draining

    Rich and free draining

  • Water

    Tomato likes occasional watering

    Occasional watering

Plant & bloom calendar

  •  
    Best time to plant
  •  
    When to harvest

full grown dimensions

The size of a fully grown Tomato is 0.80meters x 1.80meters 0.80 M 1.80 M

Solanum lycopersicum syn. Lycopersicon lycopersicum

Tomatoes - which are, scientifically speaking a fruit, not a vegetable, but are used as a culinary vegetable - are cultivated as cherry, plum, beefsteak and common round, and there are many different varieties of each type. Best results are achieved for all varieties if grown under glass. Tomatoes are typically fruiting vines. Cordon types will grow up to 1.8m when supported on a stake, or string. Shrub varieties do not need supporting. Yellow flowers are held on trusses and produce up to 10 fruits (or more, in the case of cherry tomatoes). Cordon types need to have side shoots pinched out at leaf joints. Careful watering is a must to stop fruit splitting and for flavour. Keep water off the foliage as blight can be a problem.


Planting

From Mid Spring TO Early Summer

Plant tomato plants grown from seed into the greenhouse border, when they are big enough to handle, and when risk of frost has passed. For outdoor varieties, young tender plants need to be hardened off, gradually, first in a cold-frame, and then in the open, before planting into their permanent position.

 

Propagation by seed

From Early Spring TO Mid Spring

Grow from seed in early spring in heat, one seed per tray division, or pot. Fill 9cm (3½in) pot with seed or multipurpose compost.Level and firm the compost, then water. Sow seeds on the compost surface, spacing them evenly, about 1/2" apart, (to help prevent "damping off" disease). Cover the seed with a layer of vermiculite, or sifted soil or compost. Keep at approximately 21°C (70°F), ideally in a heated propagator, When seedlings are big enough to handle, plant out in to a greenhouse - at least 16" apart - or, although less satisfactory, to a sunny windowsill

 
Subscribe to GardenTags Premium to get personalised planting tasks and more for your entire plant collection
 
Gardeners who are growing this plant