How to Grow Black Tomatoes? The Complete Growing Method Is Here
There are many kinds of vegetables we often eat, and among them is the tomato, which was called ‘xihongshi’ because it came from overseas in earlier times. As more and more improved varieties appeared, our tomatoes also came to have many varieties, large and small, red and yellow, and after that one of them has a black color; it may sound unappealing, but its taste and nutrition have both improved, so it is now often seen on the market. Today let us introduce the growing method for black tomatoes.
1. Seed selection
Buy seeds, get good black tomato seeds, and after buying the seeds the next step is sowing. When growing black tomatoes, you should understand the regional issue of black tomatoes in our country: in the south the sowing time is at the beginning of each year, while in the north a greenhouse can be used. Because the temperature in the north is lower, this way they can grow at the temperature black tomatoes prefer.
2. Raising seedlings
Next is raising seedlings. Black tomato seedlings are raised using special seedling tools; when the small black tomatoes have grown to a certain size, they must be moved into larger seedling tools. During this period you must water frequently and apply fertilizer, and also pay attention to sunlight exposure. During the seedling stage, sunlight exposure must not be too intense, otherwise the seedlings will die from excessively strong light. Also pay attention to watering often, but not too frequently, because when the seedlings are very small and tender they are very afraid of overly abundant moisture, which causes root rot, and of too little moisture, which causes drying out and death.
3. Fertilizing
Next is fertilizing. The nutrients for our black tomatoes are mainly nitrogen fertilizer, and potassium fertilizer is also indispensable; the nitrogen fertilizer and potassium fertilizer are several times that for ordinary tomatoes, and only then can our black tomatoes turn darker in color and become more nutritious. This is because only such fertilizing allows our black tomatoes to absorb more melanin and produce it. Phosphorus fertilizer must also be applied; phosphorus fertilizer can effectively add more calcium to black tomatoes. When applying phosphorus fertilizer, add an appropriate amount of insecticide, which can save a work step and also kill our early-stage pests and diseases. After fertilizing, water immediately; this way the fertilizer can immediately penetrate into the soil and allow the black tomatoes to effectively supplement nutrients.
4. Field management
Next comes frequent field care. After the second fertilizing comes our weeding work, because after repeated fertilizing our weeds also grow very fast, thus absorbing the nutrients of our black tomatoes and reducing the nutrient uptake of our black tomatoes. In the weeding work we can do manual weeding and use herbicide weeding; when manual weeding, be careful not to remove our black tomatoes. After weeding comes our pest and disease control; always observe the leaves of the black tomatoes, and when the leaves look abnormal, buy the corresponding pesticide and spray it to prevent our diseases from spreading. After that, always pay attention to our insect pests; do not wait until our black tomatoes fail to set fruit because they have been eaten by our insects. When spraying insecticide, never do it during our fruit-picking period, otherwise there will be pesticide residue.
From this we can see how hard our growers work, but our hard work can also bring rich returns; from the market we can see that the price of black tomatoes remains high, which also makes our profits a golden return.