That's probably a good idea, as they are high in nitrogen and other important nutrients. I think they're really good and use them myself. Some people swear by them:
oldworldgardenfarms.com
Worm castings are quite simply the most powerful, incredible, plant energizing all-purpose organic fertilizer you will ever use. See why, and how to use!
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Depends on how well your soil / pot drains. Hopefully it drains well, I wouldn't recommend they sit in wet soil with poor drainage. Tomatoes are heavy feeders and love sun, heat, and water, so as they grow water them regularly, maybe every few days in warm weather. Regular watering is important since it can otherwise cause splitting in the fruit. Just watch them in the heat that they don't get too limp and wilted, either, watering them a bit more in those situations. In extreme heat get something like an umbrella and block the hottest sun if you can.
Depends on the pot, but usually one or two cherry tomato plants per pot should be fine. A pot should probably be around 12x18 inches minimum for cherry tomatoes, in my opinion. The bigger the pot the bigger the plant will grow and tomato plants get actually get pretty darn huge.
An interesting thing I heard from a woman who worked at a garden centre was that she said tomatoes love to grow in pairs and you can start the seeds close together. We tried this last year and left two plants within a few inches of each other and it didn't hurt them in any way we could notice. They each produced almost the same amount of fruit as the ones grown individually. But, even with a little less fruit production per plant, they produced more tomatoes per growing "spot" because there were two plants in each hole (plants being around 3-4" apart). This resulted in about 30% more tomatoes overall across all the tomato plants. So we're trying it with a few cherry tomato plants again this year. Funny, but it seems to work!
Not sure, ours don't last very long before getting eaten.
But I've heard never to store tomatoes in the fridge as it can ruin their flavour.
Not sure if this is useful, but in case you're interested, here are a few tips I've learned about growing tomatoes (in zone 8b), and I'm also a relatively new gardener (3-4 years of learning from mistakes!),
- As the plant grows, trim the bottom 12" or so of stems and leaves, keeping them up off the dirt to avoid them getting dirt/water splashed up on the leaves as this can spread disease and viruses.
- Tie them to stakes or something so they grow vertically.
- If the flowers don't produce fruit you can shake them
briefly and vigorously, but gently, as that will help them pollinate/fertilize, apparently.
- Prune all "suckers", the new shoots that come out at the crotches of each stem.
- But, for cherry tomatoes (indeterminate, ie. "vining", not determinate/"bush" varieties), you can grow a secondary stem for more tomatoes. To do this, leave the second or third sucker on the plant (nearer the ground) and guide it up on another stake as a second stem. You can often get more tomatoes this way with cherry tomatoes. Prune all other suckers. But this isn't as useful for larger varieties like beefsteaks.
- Since you're new to gardening, you might enjoy the book "Square Foot Gardening", by Mel Bartholomew. It's an interesting concept. I didn't follow it exactly (didn't build the square box, we just use pots), but I really like his soil (1/3 compost, 1/3 peat moss, 1/3 vermiculite), because it is hard to overwater or underwater with since it is like a sponge. Plants seem to love it and it is very forgiving and nutritious. Along with the 1/3 homemade compost I now also add other amendments with it and use organic liquid fertilizer, even though Mel says not to, but I find it does help.
- If you don't use Mel's Mix soil, then be sure to amend the soil for tomatoes with a few things like worm castings and/or aged composted manure, maybe a little bone meal, blood meal, homemade compost if you've got it, and minerals like glacial rock dust, etc. You can probably still re-plant the seedling while it's small into more fertile soil if you mix some up.
- Once the plant is out of the seedling stage (maybe 8-10" tall or so), start slowly / more diluted at first, but fertilize every week or two with a liquid tomato fertilizer (I'd suggest organic, but up to you), liquid seaweed extract or a fish emulsion fertilizer (smellier, though), and ideally with diluted sea minerals from a
liquid sea mineral product. You can side-dress the plant with more worm castings/hummus regularly, as well.
- About 4 weeks prior to your first frost, remove the growing tip of each main stem. It's called "topping" and causes plants to stop flowering and directs all sugars into fruits to speed ripening.
- Once fruit has set and is ripening in the late season, pinch back the growing tips of branches to remove flowers. This causes the plant to put its energy into the remaining flowers and fruit. And gradually prune more and more stems to just let the fruit ripen.
Are you growing them in Canada or Mexico, since your profile says you're in both/either? I'm guessing your in Mexico right now because it's too late to start tomatoes from seed in Canada.
All the best, I hope they do well!
