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How Much Sun Do Tomatoes Need?

How much sun do tomatoes need to grow? Can be hard determining the amount of sun it needs. We talked about all of it in this article.

Tomato is one of the simplest types of plants that you can grow with ease as long as you know its requirements. That explains why 9 out of 10 American gardeners grow tomatoes.

There are four essential things that plants need to grow. These are soil (nutrients), water, air (carbon dioxide) and sunlight.

Without them, your plant – in this case, tomato – will not grow properly.

In this article, we

  1. Talked about the sun requirements for growing tomatoes.
  2. Answered questions like can tomatoes grow in shades, how much light do tomatoes need indoors?
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Tomatoes can either be determinate, or indeterminate, as the case may be. If they’re determinate, they’ll grow to a certain height, produce one round of tomatoes, and stop producing completely.

The reverse is the case with the indeterminate tomatoes. However, they require more attention.

Contents

How Much Sun Do Tomatoes Need To Grow?

The first thing you need to know is that the amount of light available to a tomato plant affects the photosynthetic process. 

When there is an insufficient amount of light, photosynthesis may slow down or come to a complete stop. This can result in low food production which indirectly equates to no growth.

So how much sun do tomatoes need to grow?

[bctt tweet=” Simply put, tomatoes need as much sun as they can get. ” username=”thisgardener1″]

But that doesn’t mean you should expose it to the sunlight of the Sahara desert.

The standard recommendation of sunlight for tomatoes is a minimum of six to eight hours or more. Getting this amount of sunlight every day will leave them growing big whether you’re growing in bags or in pots.

What if you’re growing them indoors?

How To Grow Tomatoes Indoors With Lights

Let’s talk about this.

If you’re planning to grow your tomatoes indoors, you should bear in mind that providing adequate light is very important.

Providing sunlight indoors may not be possible so you’re left with only one option – using grow lights.

Grow lights are an integral part of the equipment gardeners who grow indoors. The others include a grow tent (grow room), a grow bag, grow fans, humidifiers, thermometer, pH meter, as well as a timer.

Planning to grow your tomatoes indoors require that you choose the appropriate light for growing tomatoes. Ask questions like what are the best led grow lights for tomatoes, what the light intensity needed for growing tomatoes indoors, etc.

The Advance Platinum LED grow light is one of the most sought after grow lights for growing tomatoes indoors.

Understand that grow lights have different color temperatures.

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Considering the fact that natural sunlight has a color temperature of about 6000K and is good for growing tomatoes, the grow light that you should use needs to fall within that range of color temperature.

Take note of the height of the plant and give a good distance between the tomato plant you’re growing indoors and the grow light itself.

You should also consider using a timer to keep the lights off and on as it would be if you were to grow it outside in the sun.

We talked about the water requirements for a tomato plant in this article.

Lastly…

Let’s point out that light is one part of the equation when it comes to growing tomatoes whether outdoors or indoors. Other factors need to be met for your tomato plant to grow properly and germinate well.

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