The Secret To Thriving Tomato Plants Is Already Sitting In Your Yard

Four basic requirements are critical for thriving tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum). To produce tasty fruit, your tomato plants need full sun, consistent watering, fertilization, and good soil. Soil and fertilizer are co-dependent — good soil preparation prior to planting tomatoes reduces the amount of fertilizer you'll need to apply later, and the proper application of fertilizer can overcome some of the shortcomings of poor soil. After raking them up this fall, give your garden soil an extra boost by using fallen leaves to generate leaf mold. When spring comes, you can then use the leaf mold in the garden as mulch around your tomato plants or as a soil amendment.

Creating leaf mold for your tomato garden is similar to composting, with one big difference. Standard compost uses all sorts of organic materials, including grass clippings, kitchen waste, shredded newspaper, and wood ashes. Leaf compost is just dead leaves — unaugmented by any other organic material. Leaves can also be added to the compost pile if you don't need them for leaf mold. While composting depends on microbial activity and warm temperatures, creating leaf mold is not temperature-sensitive; it relies on fungi to break the leaves down. The breakdown into leaf mold can take a year or two, but chopping up the leaves with the lawnmower can speed up the process.

Adding leaf mold or almost any other organic compound to poor soil doesn't just increase the nutrients; it helps the soil hold water, lessens changes in soil temperature, aids beneficial organisms, and makes it easier for the plant's roots to spread. The amount of nutrients in leaf mold, compared to compost, is small. Still, tomatoes, including those grown in containers, largely benefit from the general improvement in soil quality from the addition of organic material, leading to a higher yield. Tomatoes often suffer from too much nitrogen in the soil, a common fertilizer mistake that's sure to hinder your harvest, but this is not a concern with leaf mold.

Making leaf mold from dead leaves isn't complicated. At its easiest, you can leave them in a pile in a corner of the yard and turn the pile from time to time with a rake or pitchfork. Another method is to put the leaves in yard waste bags, filling them about ⅔ full and poking a few holes in the bag before closing them and setting them aside. If a little bit of structure is more your style, you can fence off a spot in the yard with chicken wire and toss your leaves into the enclosure when you rake. Turn the leaves regularly.

The leaf mold is ready to use when it crumbles in your hand. Work it into the soil in the spring before planting tomatoes, or add it as a 2-inch layer of mulch around your tomato plants. In addition to nurturing the soil, it will suppress weeds and support the presence of microorganisms.