The only thing that might stop the urban gardener from growing his own bountiful crop of tomatoes is sunlight. Tomatoes need quite a bit of light—all day would be preferably, but at least six hours a day is a minimum. That makes tomato growing a challenge depending on the orientation of your house. Our balcony, for instance, faces north, meaning that it only gets direct sunlight for a couple for a couple of hours in the morning. Our tomatoes will have to go in our south-facing windows, already crowded with our smaller plants.

Rooftops are an option, though, as long as they remain accessible for constant watering. During the fruiting stages of growth, a single tomato plant can suck up as much as a gallon of water a day. It may even require multiple waterings throughout the day.

Sounds onerous, perhaps, but if you can provide ample light and water, growing tomatoes in the city is easy stuff. Tomatoes are an especially good thing to grow oneself, too, because the taste of a vine-ripened tomato is head and shoulders above those you get in the store. And if you’re like me and are sort of finicky about the exact level of ripeness, there’s no substitute for homegrown.

After the jump, the simple plans for growing tomatoes in a bucket on the cheap, plus a couple of suggestions for where to pick up starter plants in Manhattan.

Growing in a bucket is the preferred urban method, one plant per five-gallons of soil. The local hardware store should have everything you need to grow tomatoes; the Manhattan Home Depot anticipates getting “tomato starters”—small, ready-to-pot plants—in a couple of weeks. Chelsea Garden Center expects to get their starters in about three weeks. (Neither place knows what varieties they’ll get until the starters come in.)

(Brooklynites: Chelsea Garden Center is opening up a Brooklyn location in just a couple of weeks at 444 Van Brunt Street in Red Hook.)

Wherever you get your stuff, the preparation is wicked easy. Stab a dozen holes in the bottom of your five-gallon bucket with a nail or screwdriver, then pour in a couple of inches of mulch in the bottom. (This is optional, but advised; mulch will help keep the water drained properly and prevent rot. Ask your garden center salesperson for cheap options.) Then fill up the rest of the bucket with potting soil, leaving a two- to four-inch space at the top.

Get yourself a sturdy stake jam it down into the soil far enough that it will be able to hold up the weight of a fruit-laden plant. Your stake could be as high as six feet, but obviously you can cut it back if you must. Carve out a small divot in the soil next to the stake, plop in your small tomato plant, and pat down some soil back over the top of the root ball. (You want to leave the dirt that the starter plant came in around the roots, but you might give them a little squeeze to break it up somewhat.) Sprinkle a layer of mulch over the top of the exposed soil. (If you haven’t chosen to forgo mulch, of course.) Give your little plant a gentle drink of water. You’re done!

They also sell “tomato cages,” which replace the stake with a metal mesh that fits in the top of the bucket and rises up into a cone, given the tomato plant more room to vine. These work just fine, but if you can’t get a hold of any for a reasonable price—just a buck or two apiece—feel free to skip them your first time around.

After you’ve got your bucket(s) prepped and ready, just give them a good drink of water every day and as much sunlight as you can muster. If you’re growing indoors, choose a variety of tomato better suited for modest sunlight. (Again, ask your garden salesperson, but in general the smaller the fruit, the better.) You’ll also want to tie off the growing plants to the stakes with a bit of twine, just to keep them nice and stable.

As your plants grow you’ll have to keep an eye on them for bugs or disease; diagnosing these problems is beyond the scope of this little blip, but you’ll fine tons of information online, such as Tomato Gardening Tips’ troubleshooting guide. You’ll also want to add some fertilizer throughout the growing process, of which there are a multitude of options. (You can even buy potting soil that has fertilizer pellets mixed in.)

Don’t let all that stuff scare you, though. In general, any problems you might run into can be easily fixed. And by spending a fun day putting together a couple of plants and giving them some water each day, you’ll soon be harvesting some seriously delicious food. (You can even get crazy next year and try growing them upside down.

Can you grow tomatoes from seeds? Totally, but you’re a bit late, probably. Just wait for the starters. It’s way easier.

(Photo: Lenny Montana)