Question
Dear Catherine,

I was wondering if you are in a position to advise on how to go about cropping tomatoes on a commercial basis year round using green house. Please note this is intended to be set up in a tropical country in Africa if that information is at all relevant. Please also note that I have not done anything at all as yet apart from securing a 5 hectare land I intend using for it hence I am at the real start of everything. Any assistance or pointers to where I could get the information and resource I need will be most appreciated. Ideally, a manual outlining a step-by-step guide on how to go about it all will be most appropriate.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Lanre.

Answer
Hi Lanre,

I have only grown tomatoes in Western Canada, so not sure what your climate or seasons are.  Are you thinking of growing them inside a greenhouse or outside in a field?  Do other farmers grow tomatoes in your area? If so, how are they growing them?  If not, do you have a market where you can sell or are you planning to process the tomatoes?  Do you have a good water source?  Some questions to ask yourself.

Tomatoes need lots of sun, heat and water to grow well. Tomato seeds need high temperature (25-30 degrees Celsius) to germinate.  Can you germinate in your soil or will you need to propagate. If you need to propagate you will need different equipment and a specific area for this. From seed to transplanting is about 4 months and then another 2 months to get fruit.  Depending on your climate you may be able to have two crops, however you also need to rotate tomatoes plants (growing in a different area every 3 or 4 years) to keep away pests and diseases.  So you need to plan to grow other vegetable crops to have a good rotation.

If you are growing indoors you can grow them more vertical, which helps to keep the fruit from spoiling, makes it easier to water and harvest.

Having fertile soil is the most important in my opinion.  Take time to increase the fertility of your existing soil by amending and fertilizing regularly.  If you have healthy soil you will have healthy plants and good harvests.  Divide your 5 hectares into 5 areas.  Plan to grow on 1 hectare or even 1/2 hectare  the first  year to start and keep the other areas planted in green manure (vetch, rye, peas) and cultivate the crop under just before it flowers.  This will add in organic matter into your soil and increasing the fertility.

The best advice I got when starting out was to start small and increase your cultivated area as you learn about what works and does not work.  Weeds can take over so quickly if the area is not managed well.  Another piece of advise I got when I decided to sell vegetables but to always have a buyer before you plant the seed.  Vegetables are so perishable that you do not have time once they are growing or  harvest to have time to find out where you are going to sell them.

I hope I was able to give you a few tips.  I would love to hear more about how your venture is going and if I can help further please let me know.  

I have more information on growing tomatoes on my website http://www.your-vegetable-gardening-helper.com/tomatoes.html

Happy gardening,
Catherine
your vegetable gardening helper