How to Grow Tomatoes Zone 8a: Do THIS Now for a Huge Harvest (Fertilize, Weed, Prune)

How to grow tomatoes for your biggest harvest yet! In this complete tomato plant care guide I show you exactly how to fertilize, weed, and prune your tomato plants for healthy, productive vines all season long. If you want to grow better tomatoes — whether in the ground, in raised beds, or in containers — these are the simple care steps that make the biggest difference. Perfect for beginner gardeners and anyone looking to get more tomatoes off every plant. In this video you'll learn: ✅ How to fertilize tomato plants (and when) ✅ How to keep weeds from stealing nutrients ✅ How to prune tomatoes for better airflow and bigger fruit ✅ My simple care routine for a healthy harvest 🛠️ GARDEN SHOPPING LIST You can find all the parts, tools, and garden beds used in our videos right here: 🛒 Amazon Storefront: https://amzn.to/4aoyGog 🛒 Lowe’s Favorites: https://shoplowes.me/3Jp5cgN (As an Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✨ SUPPORT THE CHANNEL 👕 Merchandise & More: https://theramblinggardeners.com/shop ☕ Buy us a coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/theramblinggardeners ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📱 FOLLOW THE RAMBLING GARDENERS Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theramblinggardeners/ Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/theramblinggardeners/ Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/shop/TheGGLLC TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@theramblinggardene #howtogrowtomatoes #tomatoes #gardening #tomatoplantcare #vegetablegarden #gardeningtips #homestead 🌿 TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Welcome to the tomato patch 0:45 What we'll cover today 1:25 From February seed to June (and the April frost) 2:15 Fertilizer: breaking down the 9-4-9 3:10 My trellis setup & the looped-string trick 4:20 Suckers: determinate vs. indeterminate 5:25 Grass-clipping mulch & keeping weeds down 6:25 Heavy early pruning & pulling diseased plants 7:40 Leaf trouble: stress, disease & insects 8:40 My organic fungicide + pesticide plan 9:20 Watering & drip irrigation 10:40 The cheap soil moisture gauge 11:20 Our tomato varieties this year 12:45 Airflow & the single-stem example 13:30 Determinate tomatoes in cages 14:10 When & how long to water 15:10 Building better soil over the years 15:55 Shade cloth for Southern heat 16:45 Harvesting: blush-picking, birds & storage 18:05 Recap + fertilizing against heat stress 18:50 Pruning buds for bigger tomatoes 19:35 Must-have tools: zip ties, trimmers & twine 20:05 Wrap-up: come grow with us