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The Simple Pantry Staple That Will Sweeten Your Homegrown Tomatoes
By DARBY WAGLER
While many agree that homegrown tomatoes taste amazing, you may find they're not sweet enough for your liking. If you want to try altering the flavor of your produce, there’s a theory that sprinkling ¼ cup of baking soda around the base of the plant's stem can actually make tomatoes taste sweeter.
Baking soda is alkaline, while tomato plants are acidic, so many believe that placing baking soda around your tomato plant can alter the soil’s pH level to make the tomatoes taste sweeter. However, some people are a bit skeptical about this trick since no studies have actually proven that baking soda can sweeten tomatoes.
It’s important to note that baking soda is alkaline, with a pH level of 8, while tomato plants are acidic and need their soil to be below a pH level of 7. For this reason, using too much baking soda could kill the plant, so it’s best to be light-handed when trying this hack, or to buy a garden pH meter on Amazon for around $8 to be extra cautious.