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

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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.

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.

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.

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