Growing Tomatoes

In Portugal, we plant tomato seeds from January to March. We use modules, seed trays or small pots for planting. Wait until the plant is a hand's breadth high, then dig a hole in a finely raked bed and put in something with lots of nutrients in such as manure, banana skin or fish heads. We use pigeon poo.
Watering system

Cut a 2 litre plastic bottle in half. Take the lidded half (save the other half to use as a pot for planting seeds), keep the lid on and drill three rings of small holes in the bottom. Then, when you dig the hole for your tomato plants, put it in with the open end sticking out of the ground and you have a watering system with no chance of mildew! Use one half bottle per plant.  

Mulch

Mulch is thin layer of dry grass, straw (wheat or barley stalks), or compost that stops water from evaporating. It also prevents slugs from eating your vegetables. We use dry grass.

Pick off apexes

When your tomato plants get to about 2 feet tall, start looking for apexes (small outgrowths that come between the main stalk and a branch).They look like these photos when you find them at the right time.

Do not pick them off if they have flowers or small tomatoes. Picking off apexes prevents the plant from spending all its energy on making itself big and instead uses it to make large juicy tomatoes!

Structure

Your tomatoes might need a bit of support, especially if it is very windy like here in the Western Algarve.