‘Supercharge’ your tomato plants yield by using aspirin

GardeningExpress founder Christ Bonnett shared his tips for “supercharging” tomato plants to produce more fruit. 

He said it all begins when the plants are still younger and suggests “getting them in small pots before you plant them into bigger containers or the ground”. 

Ideally, they need to be around 15cm tall, and with “six or eight leaves”. He then recommends “removing the lower half of the plant’s leaves” so that when it’s planted, the stem is covered by compost. In turn, this makes the plant “explode with more roots”, which means “more feed for the plant going in which can boost your yields”. 

When it comes to feeding tomato plants, Chis said there are some “unofficial studies” which claim using aspirin can help tomato plants become more resistant to pests and disease.

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Aspirin also reportedly improves plant growth, which in turn sees more fruit being produced, thus increasing the total yield. 

As for how to use aspirin to feed tomato plants, Chris explained you need “one or two aspirin in a filled watering can” and simply “spray the plants with the solution and water them as well”. 

He said the plant “produces an immune response” because the “salicylic acid in the plant basically supercharges the plant against pests and disease and helps it become more resistant”. 

Chris isn’t the only gardening expert to recommend aspirin, others suggest soaking tomato seedlings in an aspirin mix before planting them out. 

Aspirin won’t, however, deter or kill pests. Whilst it improves the plant’s defences to combat problems caused by pests, it’s doesn’t initially repel them. 

Resisting disease and curing disease are two completely different tasks.

Aspirin may limit the chances of your tomato plants encountering a serious infection, but if that infection is already established, the aspirin will have little impact. In fact, many common tomato diseases are not curable once established. The plant must be completely destroyed, the Tomato Bible suggests. 

If you’d prefer not to use aspirin, you could use Epsom salts instead; just add a couple of tablespoons into a watering can and water the tomatoes once a week with it. 

Epsom salt is the common name for the chemical compound magnesium sulfate, and as the chemical name suggests, it “boosts magnesium” in the soil which tomato plants “really like”. 

Any gardener suffering from yellow leaves on their tomato plants should consider using Epsom salts, as yellow leaves with distinctive green veins is a sign of magnesium deficiency in tomato plants. 

Epsom salts can also improve the flavour of tomatoes, according to Tomato Bible.