The Dos And Don'ts Of Potting Beefsteak Tomatoes, According To A Garden Expert

First thing you have to consider is that there's two basic types of tomatoes out there. There's ones called indeterminate and there's ones called determinant.

What Is A Beefsteak Tomato?

Beefsteak is an indeterminate tomato plant. What that means is that it's a vine. It never stops growing. And so, in order to form all of those really big tomatoes, it needs lots of stems, it needs lots of leaves to gather the sunlight to turn into sugars, and it needs a good root system.

What To Know Before Buying A Beefsteak Tomato

1. When you go out to buy them, I would say do not buy a plant that's any more than about 12 to 14 inches tall, unless it's already planted in a big pot. Because if you get a really tall, lanky tomato plant and it's coming in a little 4-inch pot, you pull that plant out of the pot, you're going to see it's all root-bound. It's like a solid block of roots, and they just grow around and strangle each other, and you put them in the ground and the plant just sits there. So you're better off starting with a smaller plant that is not root-bound, that has a good, healthy root system, that you can put in a bigger pot to expand.
2. Don't put your beefsteak tomato plant in a teeny pot. You want a pot that's gonna be at least 16 inches wide, because the root system has to get big enough to support all of the top growth above.

How To Grow Beefsteak Tomatoes At Home

Dos and Don'ts Of Potting Beefsteak Tomatoes

• Do: Use a good name-brand bagged potting soil to fill up that pot for your tomato plant. tart off with new, fresh soil.
• Do: Start off with new, fresh soil.
• Don't: Use topsoil. It's too heavy. It doesn't drain well.
• Don't: Reuse the old potting soil that was in the pot from last year because chances are, it's devoid of nutrients at this point from all the rain and water that's gone through the pot. It also may contain disease spores that got on the plant from last year.

Caring Tips

Full Sun

The leaves turn the sunlight's energy into sugars for the plant. They take that energy and they make leaves, they make stems, and they make tomatoes. To get the most and the biggest tomatoes, you need to have lots of sun.

Moist Soil

• Keep the soil consistently moist: It needs to be well-drained. You need to have drainage holes, but you don't want the soil to go either dry or be soggy, because neither condition is good for the roots. So if you have to water it every day, water it well, water it until water comes out the drainage hole, and then just let it be.
• When to water: How to tell when a plant is starting to need water? The leaves will start to droop a little bit, but just try and keep it evenly moist, throughout the growing season.

Feeding

It is a big, hungry plant. It's got lots of leaves, it's growing lots of fruit, so you have to feed it. Especially one that's growing not in the ground, but in a pot.

Frequency: Feed it at least every two weeks with a liquid fertilizer, or feed it with a slow-release organic fertilizer that you sprinkle over the top of the soil, and water it in. But keep up this feeding regimen because every time you water the plant some of the food is washing out through the drainage hole. So, you don't want that plant to starve.

Extra Support

You're going to need to support this plant. It's going to get tall and lanky. It's a vine. It's not going to stop growing. If you can't tie it up either to a stake or by putting a wire cage around it, it will either break off under its own weight or it's going to just lean over and hang all of its tomatoes and have them just resting on the ground. Tomatoes that are resting on the ground will be eaten during the night by every critter in your yard.

Listen To More Tomato Advice

Listen to this episode of Ask Grumpy to hear more about growing and caring for Beefsteak tomatoes.