Growing tomatoes in Siberia: the right way, the best varieties

For residents of the region with harsh climatic conditions, it is important to have vegetables from their garden on the table, as they are environmentally friendly products. But growing tomatoes in Siberia, like other garden crops, has its own characteristics. It can be adapted for planting a greenhouse, but for a large family it is difficult to place a sufficient amount of vegetable products in it.

It remains to cultivate tomatoes in the open field. There is a proven agricultural practice over the years, which should not be forgotten, having your own plot and living in an area where summer does not stay long.

Features of site selection for tomatoes

Before you start planting tomatoes in open ground, you need to know the biological characteristics of a vegetable plant. Typical for tomatoes:

• demanding to food, moisture;
• good growth and fruiting with sufficient light and high air temperatures;
• intolerance to even mild frosts.

It is known that if the air temperature drops to plus fifteen degrees, then the flowering of the plant will stop, and below ten degrees of heat, growth will slow down. But the selection of tomatoes has led to the fact that varieties have appeared that tolerate frosts of minus one or two degrees. The resistance of tomatoes to low temperatures increases if the swollen seeds and seedlings have been hardened.

The plot for growing tomatoes in the garden is chosen with highly fertile soil, sufficiently moist. It is better if the soil relief is slightly lowered, but it should not be marshy or saline.

Biologists have established that the same crop cannot be planted in the same place for several years in a row. After all, soil fatigue occurs due to the spread of harmful microorganisms in it, the excretion of metabolic products by the roots of the vegetable. But you need to correctly alternate garden crops on the site. For tomatoes, cucumbers, cabbage, melons can be predecessors.

Preparation of soil and seeds for sowing

The soil for planting tomatoes begins to be prepared in the fall. Large areas are plowed, and small ones are dug up. This takes into account the depth of plowing, depending on the thickness of the nutrient layer. The optimal indicator is a depth of 25-30 centimeters During plowing, organic and mineral fertilizers are buried deep. For tomatoes in the autumn, a complex of fertilizers containing phosphorus and potassium is applied.

In the spring, before planting, five hundred grams of humus, up to three grams of ammonium nitrate and potassium s alt, up to eight grams of superphosphate are added to the wells.

To create humidity, in winter, snow is retained in areas under tomatoes, and in spring - melt water. After freeing up space for growing tomatoes completely from the snow, the area is loosened with an iron rake or harrow. Dense soil is also dug up to a depth of fifteen centimeters and harrowed.

Preparation of tomato seeds, their pre-treatment and hardening, will allow you to get tomato crops even under adverse weather conditions:

1. Vernalization of seeds is carried out by first soaking them in warm water for a day, changing the water every six hours. And as soon as they begin to hatch, they are transferred to a cool dark room. There they remain until the time of sowing.
2. Sprout seed material in damp moss, sawdust or soft material such as layers of toilet paper. During the procedure, the air temperature in the room reaches twenty degrees Celsius and above.Pre-sprouted tomato seeds are ready to be placed in seedling boxes.
3. Freezing of tomato seeds begins with placing the swollen seeds in water at room temperature for twelve hours, then put them on the snow. Cooling at low temperatures from zero to plus one degree, freeze at temperatures up to minus five degrees. Hardening of tomato seeds can be carried out with alternating high and low temperatures during the month. Planting material hardened in this way will give vegetable plants that can bear fruit in the open field and not be afraid of frost.
4. Placing tomato seeds in solutions, growth stimulants, will then give more flower ovaries and improve the quality of tomatoes.
5. Etching of planting material is necessary so that the plants do not get sick during the growing season. Seeds are disinfected with a weak solution of potassium permanganate for twenty to thirty minutes, then washed and dried.

All seed and soil preparation procedures are aimed at growing high-quality and he althy tomatoes in the Siberian region.

Getting strong seedlings

Without seedlings, growing tomatoes in the open field is impossible. The optimal time for planting vegetable seeds in a container with loose soil is the middle or end of March. The prepared planting material is embedded in the soil to a depth of one to two centimeters. After that, the soil is watered with warm water, the boxes are covered with plastic wrap and exposed to rooms with an air temperature of 25 degrees Celsius. Every day, tomato plantings are ventilated, removing covering material. Water the soil as needed. As soon as the first sprouts of tomatoes appear, then:

• equip additional lighting with fluorescent lamps suspended at a distance of five centimeters from plants;
• reduce air temperature to eight to fifteen degrees Celsius;
• monitor the humidity of the air and soil, maintaining it at 70 percent.

After the appearance of the first two true leaves, tomato seedlings are transplanted, diving into separate pots. A month before planting in garden beds, tomato seedlings are hardened, taking them out into the air, first for several hours, then for a day.

Landing in open ground, care rules

Usually sixty-day-old tomato seedlings are transferred to the beds when the threat of frost has passed and the soil has warmed up to ten degrees above zero. Tomato seedlings planted in May must be covered so that they do not freeze. Therefore, they use an inclined landing, covering the plants with earth. Within one or two days there will be nothing for the tomatoes, and after removing the earth, the stems of the tomato take a vertical position.

Many people use caps made of paper or cardboard as protection for tomato bushes. At the same time, their edges are sprinkled with earth so that the wind does not blow away the caps.

The layout of tomato seedlings is 60 x 60 or 70 x 70 centimeters. Correctly position the bushes of the plant at a distance of fifty centimeters from each other. Before planting, wood ash is added to the wells, from which tomatoes receive phosphorus. The deepening of tomato seedlings occurs to the first true leaf. Planted vegetable bushes are watered with two to three liters of warm water under each stem. Care for outdoor planted tomatoes includes:

• timely, moderate watering of bushes;
• alternating fertilizing with mineral and organic substances in the prescribed proportion;
• fertilizing once every two weeks;
• shaping the stem and tying indeterminate tomato varieties.

If tomato seedlings are planted in April in open ground, then they arrange a bed, raising it above the level of the site. Manure is added to the wells, covering the top with last year's grass. Then lay out the compost. Prepared holes measuring 30 x 30 centimeters are ready to receive tomato seedlings. After planting, tomato bushes are watered abundantly and mulched with straw or peat.

For a bed, a non-woven material shelter is needed, which is arranged by placing a wire frame structure on top of the bed. During the growing season of tomatoes, they are aired, lifting the material during the day. Such plantings do not need watering and top dressing - there is enough moisture and fertilizers in the soil. After warm, sunny weather is established, the material is removed, and the frame serves as a support for the stems of the tomato.

The grown and harvested tomato crop is processed for the winter. Unripe fruits are put in boxes or baskets and kept in a dry and dark place until fully ripe.

Siberian tomato varieties

Best suited for outdoor cultivation are varieties of tomatoes that are adapted to survive and bear fruit in the harsh conditions of Siberia. They differ from greenhouse plants in that they ripen a little later, for the most part they belong to undersized types of tomatoes.

Among the early-ripening varieties, Demidov tomatoes are distinguished by high yields and excellent taste. They bear fruit 100-110 days after seed germination. The tomato bush reaches a little over half a meter in height. By weight, the fruits reach one hundred or two hundred grams. Pink tomatoes are suitable for fresh consumption.

Tomato Snezhana gives the first fruits after 105 days. On a compact plant half a meter tall, medium-sized tomatoes grow, universal in food use.

It is known about the Barnaul canning variety that its fruits weighing three hundred grams are suitable for pickling and s alting. And you can cook food already a hundred days after planting a vegetable.

Siberian surprise is a vegetable that pleases with harvests of fruit clusters of ten kilograms from one bush. The indeterminant requires competent care, the formation of a bush in three stems.

Among large-fruited tomatoes there are:

1. Tomato Abakan pink is valued for its excellent taste and decorativeness of heart-shaped tomatoes of light red color. Large varieties of tomatoes ripen in 115 days, weighing five hundred grams or more.
2. The Dimensionless determinant boasts a gigantic size of the fetus.
3. Large Berdsky tomato is intended for open ground. In height, the bush does not reach a meter, but it can boast of the weight of fruits, of which many reach eight hundred grams.
4. The indeterminate Superbomba also has fruits weighing six hundred grams, and a bush height of one and a half meters requires pinching and garters.
5. Yellow tomatoes up to three hundred grams each are harvested from Samokhval tomato. In addition to high yields, the variety is noted for disease resistance.
6. Grandma's secret gives tomatoes almost a kilogram in weight. Scarlet fruits are good both fresh and canned. They make fortified juices, tomato pastes and sauces.

Valued for the open ground of the Siberian region and low-growing types of tomatoes. Among the determinant species are known and verified:

• Heart of a buffalo with a stem height of seventy centimeters and tomatoes per kilogram;
• Siberian heavyweight, barely holding eight hundred grams of tomatoes on short stems of sixty centimeters;
• Amber variety with small orange fruits famous for excellent taste, abundance in racemes;
• Petrusha gardener with elongated tomatoes, giving from one square meter to twelve kilograms of fruit.

Achievements of Siberian selection stations allow residents of northern latitudes to enjoy a he althy vegetable product throughout the short summer and prepare canned food from grown tomatoes for the winter.

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