Self Watering System For Tomato Plant Care

 Everyone knows that tomatoes need to be watered properly to extract the best and juiciest fruit. But what exactly does that mean and what is too little or too much water for a tomato vine? There is a happy balance to be struck when watering tomatoes and one way of achieving that balance in a very effective way is to employ the use of a self watering system for getting exactly the right amount of water to your tomato plants.

So why is a self watering system so effective?

In order to explain that you need to understand that tomatoes love the right amount of water. They will suffer badly if the soil they are planted in is allowed to go dry, but they can also be over watered which will impede the amount of air exchange between the soil and the roots. This will affect how well the plant grows and the amount of fruit they produce.

So what is required is a happy balance of self wicking planter keeping the soil moist whilst avoiding drenching of the roots. The watering program you implement will clearly need to take into account whether the plants are in a greenhouse, when they are entirely dependent on the watering program, or whether they are located in the garden, in which case they may get water if it rains.

Using a self watering system that can be controlled by a timer will help ensure that you can meter the water to meet your exact requirements, a little trickier for the second scenario admittedly but still very effective. The other benefit of course is that the method is not entirely dependent on someone actually doing the watering so if you have a busy lifestyle and are not always available the tomatoes still get the required quota of water.

There is a slight downside to self watering systems in that you are not necessarily inspecting your plants each day and you may miss the early signs of disease or insect infestation so you will need to pay particular attention to this aspect and try to look at your plants at least once a day. Well worth the effort for the better crops that can be yielded as a result.

So for happy, healthy and fruitful tomato vines, make sure that you pay particular attention to the watering program and whether you elect to water them yourself or use a self watering system, provide a happy medium about mid way between dry and drenched.