Try cherry and grape tomatoes. I've grown cherry tomatoes for the past two years along with starting grape tomatoes this year and I've had much more success with them than larger varieties. I think they tend to be more disease resistant, more vigorous, more productive, and fruit matures more quickly.

Also try growing them in bags or raised beds where it's kept away from the ground where pests can get at them easier. Another thing you can do is cover the soil around them with straw mulch in order to reduce soil splash onto the plant when it's being watered--this can transmit diseases to the plant. Pick off all the bottom half foot of leaves or so on the plant when it's big enough too to reduce soil splash hitting leaves.

[–] DragonAce@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I stopped growing grape tomatoes. They're easy to grow but they're an indeterminate variety, and since they grow so fast they require a lot of pruning. I found a determinate variety of cherry tomato that grows so sturdy that it could potentially stand on its own without any trellis or cage until it starts fruiting, not willing to test it though.

[–] Swallowtail@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

I built a trellis using T posts, electrical conduit, and PVC pipe and it has worked extremely well.

https://ladyleeshome.com/how-to-build-tomato-trellis-2/

It's basically this. Takes some work and some money but it was well worth it to me. I will have this for years and it performs much better than cages.

And yes, indeterminate tomatoes require pruning but it's well worth the trade-off to me to have tomatoes ripening all the time instead of all at once.