ALMOST everyone who grows vegetables grows tomatoes — they are always among the best-selling seeds and plants bought by home gardeners.

It must follow that they are also among the main causes of frustration to home gardeners, because they’re not always the easiest crop.

So if you’ve been having trouble with your toms, here are a few suggestions.

If you’re starting from seed, sow them singly — just one seed per small pot.

This is more costly in compost, space and time than using seed trays, but it’s worth it.

Overcrowding, at any stage of the plant’s life, is one of the major causes of problems with tomatoes.

That’s mainly because toms need as much light as possible and a seedling that starts life surrounded by others is unlikely to grow into a strong plant.

The amount of light available to tomatoes in their first few weeks after germination can determine their eventual fruitfulness.

If your seedlings tend to grow up spindly rather than stocky and you’ve already got them in the lightest position you can provide, then you may be better off buying or begging young plants in late spring or early summer instead of growing from seed.

When it’s time to put your young tomatoes out, whether into pots, greenhouse beds or the garden, plant them deeply, so that the lowest set of leaves is only just clear of the soil or compost.

Tomatoes produce extra roots from any part of the stem which is beneath ground, which not only aid stability but also the uptake of water and nutrients.

It follows that the more inches of stem that are underground, the better. It may even be worth removing the bottom two sets of leaves, so as to expose more bare stem for burying.

I know some people go even further and remove sufficient leaves so that a full three-quarters of the length of the plant goes under the soil.

My nerve fails me at that point; I can’t help feeling the plant needs sufficient foliage to get it growing strongly. But the principle remains sound.

Tomatoes rarely need as much watering as we think they do, unless you’re growing them in containers or the weather is unusually hot and dry.

The rule of thumb is that a growing plant needs an inch of water per week, whether this comes from the sky or from the watering can.

Aim to water thoroughly once a week, rather than shallowly several times a week. Reducing watering slightly as the fruits start to ripen can improve the flavour.

Incidentally, don’t let tomato plants fool you into giving them an extra watering by going all floppy in the middle of a sunny day. Ignore the wilting leaves and you’ll see that in the cool of the evening (“when everything is gettin’ kind of groovy”) they’ll perk up again.

Garden compost, whether home-made or bought, is the key to feeding toms. In early summer mulch every plant with 2 inches (5cm) of thoroughly rotted compost.