Ahh the best soil for tomatoes...
here is a fun topic.
Go onto any gardening forum and post a question along these lines and look at the results.
It would seem that everyone has a sure-fire favourite recipe.
Sometimes handed down for generations or sometimes a miracle discovery, but whether they really have the "best" solution...
well they certainly have the best solution for themselves.
Let me be very clear about this point before I go any further there is no "best" soil for growing tomatoes in.
There is an optimum pH balance, there is an optimum N-P-K ratio, there are optimum hydration levels and soil compositions...
but all of these factors can be a little different depending on exactly where it is that you live and some of them, particularly nutrient requirements, will change as the growing season progresses.
What you are trying to achieve with your soil is to give the plant exactly what is needs to grow and bear fruit.
The soil is where the plant receives its hydration and its nutrients from.
The soil is its kitchen table.
The question of best soil for tomatoes is really asking what are the factors that I need to monitor, what is the optimum for these factors and how do I achieve this.
Any attempts to buy a miracle in a bottle are simply methods to avoid the responsibility of producing the right conditions yourself.
Fortunately the correct levels of all of the above necessary for tomatoes to grow healthy and happy in are very well known.

• Tomatoes like a slightly acid soil, try for a pH between 6.
  2 and 6.
  8 to start with and adjust as you see fit.
  
• Adopt the heavy nitrogen approach or the balanced N-P-K approach as takes your fancy.
  I will go further into these later in this article.
  
• Keep the plant well hydrated but not swamped.
  
• Keep the soil (and plant) warm in the cooler months so as to not retard growing rates overly.
  
• Don't plant tomatoes in very dense clays or overly sandy soils.
  

All of these points are simple and (with the exception of fertilization) universally agreed upon.
What is more they are reasonably simple to produce.
There are standard procedures and routines that you can adopt that will see you having a very bountiful garden the majority of the time.
However as I mentioned above the one area that seems to be divided is that of nutrition.
You will see very different sorts of advice given as to the correct nutrient balance for tomatoes.
I would venture to say that both cannot be correct and I will try and sort out as best I can the reasons for this division and where the correct solution may lay.
Nitrogen is required by all plants to grow.
A tomatoes nitrogen requirements go up as the season gets longer and the tomato grows larger.
It is on this basis that the high nitrogen camp suggests 3-1-1 ratios for fertilization needs.
On the other hand what we are looking to do when growing tomatoes is to produce fruit not green foliage and long vines.
So on this premise the 'balanced' camp suggest weighting the needs of the tomato evenly (1-1-1 balances) as phosphorus and potassium (the P and K) help more in fruit set and disease prevention.
Both of these arguments have merit and I would suggest that each has its place.
With this in mind the best feeding practice would seem to be one that took both of these into account.
Hence the following should be a good guide to getting the best soil for your tomatoes.

1. Start your tomato garden with any soils that are slightly acidic and that have a fairly neutral balance.
   
2. Feed your young plants with balanced fertilizer at very low levels to start.
   
3. At first fruit set feed again with balanced feed.
   
4. At second set and further through the season gradually shift the balance to favouring more nitrogen and potassium eventually as high as 4-1-4 towards the end of the season.
   This will keep up with the increasing demands of the plant.
   
5. Monitor your crop and the results and adjust to suit your local conditions until you have exactly the right balance for your particular area.
   

Only in this way can we achieve the ideal conditions for our plants because gardening, like life, is to a certain extent about trial and error and experience.