Every year we have bragging rights to seven-foot high tomato plants at our garden in Sandy. However, this year at the house we moved to in Draper, we grew some plants that were that tall again, but they far surpassed the yield of previous years in Sandy. There are several things that made the difference in the Draper garden, but let’s start out with just the basics that anyone can tackle to get to tomato “tree” status!

• Make new tomato cages — First of all, if you have any of those ready-made tomato cages from the local garden stores, use them for your bell peppers. You need some major muscle to hold up these tomato trees.
• Then when you go to plant the tomatoes, nip off the bottom stems/leaves (about half the plant). Then when you plant the tomatoes, bury them up to the remaining leaves so there is a large main stem underground. That seems to be the prominent trick to giving them a strong start so they grow to tree status!