Small, sweet, and plum is the definition of the cherry tomato. It doesn’t matter whether you are a farmer with an acre of land or a simple one with a container at home; the cherry tomato is a plant that is easy to grow. When planting a cherry tomato, as long as you appropriately space them, you will get good results.
Cherry tomatoes are best planted in the spring when the threat of frost has passed. You can also start your cherry tomatoes indoors and plant them outdoors when they are a few inches tall. However, let us begin with how to space the cherry tomato.
How Far Apart to Space Cherry Tomatoes
Selecting a location for your garden is the most important step in cultivating cherry tomatoes. Whether you cultivate in the ground, in raised beds, or choose container gardening, it is important to space your cherry tomatoes. Pick a location with at least 6 to 8 hours of direct sunlight daily because tomato plants appreciate the warmth.
The soil you choose should be loose, well-drained, and slightly acidic. The ideal soils for growing tomatoes are loam and sandy loam. Cherry tomato plants will grow in practically any soil type but won’t do well in thick clay. If your garden area includes a lot of clay, you can add sand or peat moss.
When planting tomatoes, it is advisable to use a fertilizer that is specially formulated for them. Use the fertilizer as directed on the label for the duration of the growing season.
The general norm is to place bushier, determinate plants 2 feet apart. Then for the long-vined variety, they should be planted about 3 feet apart. This is important if you began from seeds and didn’t have a plant tag as a reference.
You can also support your tomato trellis using a trellis or cage. When spacing tomatoes, you should do well to allow them a lot of space because their roots spread out. If you bought plants from a nursery, look at the plant tags to see how far apart you should space them. The tags allow you to see the appropriate spacing for the cherry tomatoes.
Your tomato plant will need support, such as a cage or trellis, as it grows. Before laying your plants in the soil, choose the support you will use beforehand. One of the advantages of choosing support beforehand is that you will not be supporting an overgrown, mature plant and destroying roots and vines as you go.
Spacing Cherry Tomatoes on Raised Bed
Bush or determinate tomato plants are an excellent space-saving option. The bush tomato also thrives especially well in smaller raised beds. The bush tomato stays a manageable size and doesn’t require a lot of pruning when compared to its cumbersome vining siblings. Tomato cages can support the majority of bush tomato plants.
The spacing for tomatoes on a raised bed is between 18-24 inches. If you are spacing and planting an indeterminate species, support is necessary for indeterminate or vine tomatoes. When constructing the raised tomato garden, keep in mind the variety you are spacing because that will make it easy for you to choose the raised bed and what material to use to construct it out of. A trellis can be put into the ground to make the raised beds sturdy enough to support powerful tomato vines.
Spacing Cherry Tomatoes in Containers
Tomato plants should be cultivated one per container in big containers, and the containers should be at least 18 or 24 inches wide and deep. However, compact tomato plants can be grown in containers as tiny as 12 inches wide and deep. Resist the urge to plant multiple tomato plants in a single container because each plant needs room to grow. You can add other low-growing companion plants that won’t compete with your tomatoes, such as lettuce or marigolds.
Why is Spacing Your Tomatoes Important?
Below are a few reasons why you should space your tomatoes.
- To Grow Healthy Plants
Plants do not appreciate being crammed into the same space. When you plant your tomatoes too close together, you are putting them at risk of being invaded by pests. Also, your plants may begin to encroach on one another when they are crammed too close together. If your plants aren’t well spaced, they will not get dry easily after rainfall which can cause diseases to grow.
- Better Yield
How do you expect a good yield if your plants are too busy competing for nutrients? If your plants are not well spaced, their growth will be stunted, or worse, they will die. Also, tomatoes need at least eight hours of sunlight to grow into healthy plants, and your tomatoes also need constant fertilizing and water.
- Reduction in Weed Growth
You encourage weed growth when you don’t plant your tomatoes in the correct spacing, and the extra space you may leave can become the perfect breeding ground for weeds. If you need clarification about all the figures and numbers, save yourself the headache and get a plant spacing chart. If you are worried about all the extra space, in the next paragraph, I will explain what you can do with all that space.
What To Do With Extra Space?
If you are worried about all the huge gaps being left between each tomato plant, you can do something about it that will still be productive. You can interplant your tomatoes with inventive plants to get more out of your garden. You’ll need to prune off some lower growth when your tomato plants become established and climb upward to stop pests and diseases from entering the soil through the soil surface.
Once you’ve done the pruning, the area beneath your tomato plants can be planted with a wide range of amazing crops. You can try growing lettuce, spinach, or anything else that grows quickly and doesn’t require too much light. Before you fertilize your plants with a high-quality tomato fertilizer and they begin to bush out wildly and entirely block sunlight, you need to get these crops in and out.