I would do a search and find some videos to watch on growing tomatoes.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=easy+ways+to+grow+tomatoes
From there, decide what you want to DO with your tomatoes - just slice and eat them? Do some canning? Do you want to dry them? Make Salsa? And choose varieties from there.
(We can help you with that - we all have our favorites!)
Pro Tip? Unless you are feeding an army, ONE cherry-type tomato plant is MORE than enough, LOL!
I usually plant two; a red and a yellow, because Beau will eat them by the handful all day long, and twice on Sundays, but I don’t care for them all that much, other than as a salad topping.
I would also recommend getting a copy of ‘Square Foot Gardening’ by Mel Bartholomew. It’s a great system for growing anything, and you can expand it as needed to larger growing beds.
Also, ‘The Month By Month Gardening Series’ of books, based upon your state, are just excellent for beginning gardeners. They tell you what to do when, based upon where you live/garden. Highly recommended.
I’ve been ‘in the biz’ for 20 years and I still read gardening books in the winter months - they keep me sane, and I always find something new to try. Start slow and don’t let yourself get overwhelmed. There is a ‘learning curve’ so once you’ve mastered one part of it, move on to the next thing that interests you. I can’t recommend a better ‘hobby’ than growing food and flowers. :)
It has been a rather disappointing gardening season here. Our tomatoes got root rot because of hubby’s nifty auto watering system. :( We got some tomatoes, but not nearly what we should have. Our three pepper plants produced only 3 green peppers! Worst yield we ever had. We harvested three eggplants from one plant. Got enough green beans for a few meals, but they did not keep producing long. Our three cucumber plants did a good job. Sunflowers are blooming like crazy, so we might get a good amount of seeds later.
It might be time next spring to me to take over the fertilizing and watering duties. The last two years we split the duties where I found the plants, then he did all the planting and tending, then I put up the products of his labor.
Thank you so much for taking the time to write all that out for me, DW! It looks like it’s going to be very helpful, just what I needed.
Looking at the books now.