I like most vegetables — sweet corn, cauliflower, broccoli, green beans, peas, lettuce, brussels sprouts, potatoes, butternut squash, beets and carrots. But I absolutely love tomatoes. There is nothing better than biting into a juicy, sun-ripened tomato fresh off the vine that was grown in your own garden.

A lot of beginning gardeners or gardening wannabes are afraid to grow tomatoes due to a fear of failure. Growing tomatoes requires a little more effort than growing lettuce or green beans, but achieving success is not difficult. Here are some tips to help you grow plenty of juicy, flavorful tomatoes in your garden:

1. Grow a variety. It’s OK to plant just one or two tomato plants, but if you want a lot of tomatoes, select four or five different varieties to grow in your garden. I usually plant nine or 10 tomato plants in my garden. I prefer to buy my plants at a garden center.

I recommend planting one red cherry tomato and one yellow pear or yellow cherry tomato. These are small varieties that are great in salads and fun to eat right off the plant. Kids tend to like them, and they produce a lot of tomatoes all season long.

I usually plant one early-maturing variety such as Early Girl because I can’t wait to get ripe tomatoes in my garden. Planting tomatoes that mature at different times also extends your growing season and your yield. I recommend planting a couple of midseason varieties like Celebrity and Better Boy. These varieties produce lots of medium-size fruit. It’s also fun to plant one big variety like Beefsteak, Bigger Boy or Mortgage Lifters. These varieties produce tomatoes that are each up to 1 pound in size.

I also like to have one yellow tomato if I can find them at a garden center. Yellow tomatoes are less acidic than red tomatoes and have a more mellow flavor. Kids like these too. Roma tomatoes are great if you like canning salsa or making your own tomato sauce or paste. They are meatier and less juicy than other varieties and make thicker salsa and tomato sauce.

2. Select a good site. It’s important to choose a well-drained area for your garden. Plant tomatoes in the sunniest spot in your garden. They soak up a lot of sunshine. Aim for tomatoes to get seven to eight hours of sun per day. Give your plants room to grow. Plant seedlings 30 inches apart. Leaving space between tomato plants will let light into the lower portions of the mature plants, improve airflow and help prevent disease.

3. Beef up the soil. Tomatoes thrive in rich, well-draining, slightly acidic soil with a pH of 6.5 to 6.8. Neutral soil will have a pH of 7.0. Buy a soil tester at a garden center to determine the pH of your soil. If your soil is too acidic, below 7.0, it will have a lower pH. If your soil is too alkaline, above 7.0, it will have higher pH. Adding fertilizer can help find the right balance. If your soil is too acidic, add lime. If it’s too alkaline, add composted dry cow manure.

4. Water deeply. Juicy tomatoes need water, at least an inch a week. A blanket of mulch — anything from shredded pine bark to grass clippings and composted leaves — will keep the water from evaporating in summer’s heat. If you use grass clippings to mulch your tomatoes, are any part of your garden, make sure your grass is free of herbicide or you will kill your plants.

5. Provide support. Before tomatoes are a foot tall, it is a good idea to put a tomato cage on each plant or begin staking plants to provide support. Supporting tomato plants keeps the fruit from touching the soil and rotting. It also keeps tomatoes clean and allows them to get more sun and air. We have tomato cages that were made from 4-inch woven-wire fencing that are 4 feet tall. You can easily reach in and grab a tomato or prune leaves. Our homemade cages have lasted for a couple of decades and provide plenty of support to growing tomato plants.