Tired of visiting the store... Grow your own cherry tomatoes at home!!
Cherry tomatoes are small round shaped fruit. And Yes!! Cherry tomatoes are actually fruits and not vegetables. They are normally red in color but also come in other colors such as yellow, green etc. Cherry tomatoes are very nutritious and contain largely carbohydrates and also contain iron in small quantities.
These little fruits do not contain any fats and are greatly beneficial for all the health conscious people out there. Another plus point is that these little juicy fruits are low in calories mainly because of their high protein counterparts.
Few Health Benefits:
- Great source of Vitamin A, which is good for your eyesight and immunity.
- High in antioxidants and helps in cell recovery
- Prevents bone diseases such as osteoporosis.
- Protects your skin from harmful ultraviolet rays from sun.
- Potassium present in cherry tomatoes is beneficial for high blood pressure patients.
Why is it good to grow cherry tomatoes in your home? And should you consider growing it?
Mainly because of the pesticides that are used for growing vegetables sold in the market. However home grown cherry tomatoes are organic and can be grown in the most natural way possible making it safer for consumption and away from any chemical slag.
If you have a little bit of unused space in your house which can hold a large size bucket, you can definitely go for cultivation of cherry tomatoes in your house.
Process of growing in-house cherry tomatoes:
- Select a large container which can hold at least 15 to 20 liters of water. Rectangle or square container is considered good. If you do not want to go for a simple bucket, you can always go for other planters or pots readily available in the market.
- After you have selected your container, make holes at the center and along the edges of the bottom of your container. The holes should be around 1.25 to 1.5 cm for the excess water to drain out.
- Place your container anywhere around your house, which gets not less than 8 hours of direct sunlight. If you are putting your container in the balcony which has a grill or mesh for the plant to grow into, then you don’t have to go for a tomato cage, otherwise you have to buy one for your plant to grow.
- Then comes the time for the potting mix to go into the container. If you are putting a tomato cage, firmly place the pointy ends over the potting mix in the container.
- Spray water into your potting mix to the point where it becomes moist and then lay another layer of potting mix covering up to the rim of the container.
- Once the potting mix is evenly spread, make a deep hole in the middle of the container and place your tomato plant into the hole. Do not forget to place the plant deep enough only to show the first few leaves to show up above the potting mix.
- Water your plant every alternate day in case of hot summers and every 2 or 3 days on normal days. Use organic fertilizer every week for added advantage.
- Let the plant grow within the cage or mesh and do not let the branches come out of the cage to avoid slouching.
Harvesting:
Most of the cherry tomato plants will flower within a month or so. These flowers will bear fruits and will become fully ripe within the next few weeks.
One way to know if your tomato is fully ripe is that it comes out easy from the stem when trying to pluck it. It’s better to wait for a day or two to let it fully ripe and then you pluck it without causing any stress.
Happy planting!!!
