Frankie Flowers Gardening Tips – Time to Talk Tomatoes with Frankie Flowers

The taste of a juicy tomato freshly plucked from the garden is one of my favourite summer-gardening moments. Undoubtedly the world’s most popular fruit grown in the vegetable garden, tomatoes come in all shapes, colours, sizes and flavours. From cherry tomatoes, slicers and plum tomatoes, to colours of red, yellow and purple – believe it or not, all require the same growing conditions. Here are some quick tips to get your perfect tomato garden growing this summer.

Make Them Feel Hot, Hot, Hot
Tomatoes like it hot and sunny, requiring at least six (but ideally eight) hours of direct sunlight – preferably in the afternoon – for optimum growth. The hottest summers produce the best tomatoes.

Feed Your Soil
Whether planted in the ground or in a pot, tomatoes require rich and
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Digging In — Frank “Frankie Flowers” Ferragine

Coming home from school one summer, Frank Ferragine realized something very simple yet extraordinarily important about himself. For years, he had his sights firmly planted on becoming a lawyer with dreams of judicial grandeur dancing through his mind. He fast-tracked through university to speed up the process while also gaining acceptance to Osgoode Hall Law School at York University. But something was amiss. Something just didn’t feel right.

Ferragine took the year off to help his parents open their new garden centre in Barrie, Ont., – his hands in the dirt and the fragrance of fresh foliage wafting through his nose. It was during those days that he came to a blunt and obvious conclusion: “I really don’t like paperwork.” In that single moment of existential epiphany, Ferragine’s true passion began to actualize and low-and-behold, his true calling was budding right before his eyes: gardening. Read more