What is a good mulch for tomato plants?

I have found that if you use red landscaping fabrics it makes the plants grow HUGE and blocks weeds at the same time. You can usually find this in catalogs (Burpee, Gurney's, Gardens Alive)





There is something in the red color that tomatoes love.





I have heard that if you plant carrots with your tomatoes it makes them sweeter. I am trying that this season.

What is a good mulch for tomato plants?
coffee grounds work good
Reply:You can also keep aphids from your tomatoes by planting marigolds close to / around them.
Reply:It depends on how much you want to spend. You can use dried grass clippings, several layers of new paper, compost, wood chips, ground coconut hulls, The purpose of mulch is to conserve moisture (which for tomatoes is a very good thing), help keep the weeds down and to make the area pretty. If you use an organic mulch (any things that is composed of organic mater) it will rot down and be incorporated in to you soil which is a very good thing as soil is improved by the addition of organic matter.
Reply:If you can find it, organic mushroom mulch work great. It helped give us many firm tasty tomatoes last year.
Reply:grass clippings??? that is great if you want grass growing in your garden. Use straw. it will last all summer. it lets the water get to the roots plus it will hold in the moisture and when the growing season is over you can till it under and it will decompose into the soil.
Reply:I plant my tomatoes very close together in squares of 4, i foot apart and the squares are about 2 feet apart.


x x x x x x


x x x x x x


then I pile grass clippings all around them. when they pack down a bit I add more. They add a lot of nutrients to the ground and dig in easily the next spring. I always have lots of beautiful tomatoes without watering or weeding.


Evey time I cut the grass I check to see if I have about 3 or 4 inches of clippings around them. It looks nice too.


With the tomatoes so close together I stake them in a teepee fashion, tying the 4 tops together, then lay a stake across the tops of several squares. that way they are easy to tie and sturdy.
Reply:cocoa bean shells mulch or pine bark mulch

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