Everything You Need To Know About Tomato Plant Spacing

Tomatoes are the most popular vegetable among home gardeners. Not only are they versatile in the kitchen, but tomato plants are also easy to grow and produce high yields. And home-grown tomatoes taste far superior to store-bought fruits. For a healthy crop, it is important to consider tomato plant spacing at planting time. Several factors influence how far apart individual plants should be spaced, including plant type, staking system, and gardening style. Let’s take a closer look at proper tomato plant spacing for each growing style.

Why Tomato Plant Spacing is Important

Tomato plants require plenty of room to grow. Adequate spacing reduces competition between the root systems of plants, ensuring each plant can access the water and nutrients it requires to support developing foliage and fruits. Above the soil surface, plants need ready access to sunlight to drive photosynthesis. Allow enough space between plants to prevent one plant from shading another. Orienting your rows north to south can also help maximize access to sunlight. 

Finally, proper plant spacing is important to ensure air circulates freely around plants. Tomato plants are susceptible to a number of diseases. When plants are set too close together, air circulation is diminished, which encourages a more humid plant canopy that favors disease. Providing ample space between rows helps to encourage air flow.

Tomato Spacing by Plant Type

Tomatoes are classified into two main groups, determinate and indeterminate, according to their growth and fruit production habits. Determinate tomatoes are relatively compact and bushy compared to indeterminate tomatoes. Their development can be divided into two phases. First, they produce foliage. Plants grow to a certain height and stop growing, refocusing their energy on the second stage of development—flowering and fruiting. They tend to produce a large crop of fruit all at once. Determinate-type tomatoes need plenty of space between plants to accommodate their bushy growth. Unsupported determinate tomatoes can be planted 2 to 2 1/2 feet apart in rows spaced 4 feet apart.

Indeterminate tomatoes grow, flower, and set fruit continuously throughout the growing season. Plants tend to grow taller than determinate types and are commonly pruned to maintain a single central stem. While it is best to cage or stake indeterminate tomatoes, they can be grown without support. Space unstaked indeterminate tomato plants 3 to 4 feet apart with 5-6 feet between rows. 

Spacing Staked or Supported Tomato Plants

Staking or caging tomato plants provides many benefits—including space saving. Plants supported by a trellis or cage can be spaced closer together than unsupported plants, as their growth is directed upward. Determinate tomatoes are typically supported using tomato cages or the stake and weave method. You can reduce the space between supported determinate tomato plants, setting them 1½ to 2 feet apart. 

Providing support for indeterminate tomatoes makes a big difference in plant spacing. Indeterminate tomatoes can be supported through trellising, the stake-and-weave method, or cages. Supported plants can be spaced much closer together than unsupported plants, at just 1½ to 2 feet apart. This allows you to produce many more fruits in the same space. 

Tomato Spacing by Garden Type

The tomato plant spacing described above is typical of a traditional vegetable garden and may not fit every growing situation. Raised beds, for example, are typically 4-feet-wide. Using the above spacing allows for only a single row of tomatoes per bed. Gardeners looking to maximize production in raised beds can adopt the plant spacing used in intensive bed gardening, a growing system that produces crops on 4-foot-wide mounded rows in the garden. Stagger two rows of staked tomato plants along the length of the raised or mounded bed, giving each plant a two-foot circle in which to grow. 

Container-grown tomato plants also need adequate space for growth. This includes selecting an appropriately sized container, at least five to ten gallons or 18- 24 inches, as well as setting containers far enough apart to allow air to flow around each plant. Square foot gardens are another popular method for growing vegetables. These systems allow a single one-foot square per tomato plant, which is rather tight spacing. When using this method, it is best to grow indeterminate-type tomatoes, setting them along the north edge of the garden and using a support system to direct their growth upward.