Growing Your Own Tomatoes

Tomatoes must be the ideal crop for the vegetable garden. They need very little space, can be grown either in a greenhouse or outdoors, in an ordinary vegetable bed, in a raised garden bed, in pots or in grow bags. Three or four tomato plants will produce a bountiful harvest for cooking or for salads from early summer until well into autumn, and the fragrance and taste of freshly picked tomatoes are beyond comparison.

The secrets of success are:

• Choosing the right variety for the situation.
• Healthy plants grown without any stress or check.
• Regular and even watering.
• Lots of warmth and sunlight.
• Generous feeding once the fruit have set.
• Pruning, or ‚”pinching out”, to restrict the crop (except for bush varieties).

Choosing Your Tomato Variety

Old favourites like Ailsa Craig, Alicante, Gardeners Delight, Moneymaker and Shirley are always reliable, but there are many different varieties to choose from, varying in shape, size, colour and flavour and growing habit. Cordon varieties must be trained on a stake; bush or trailing varieties need no support. Which to choose is essentially a matter of individual preference, but whatever you pick must be suitable for greenhouse or outdoor cultivation as appropriate.

More on tomato varieties.

Growing Tomatoes from Seed

Unless you’re growing a large number of tomato plants, or want a variety you can’t find in the garden centre, it’s normally more economical, and less effort to buy in well grown plants in 9cm pots. However, seed companies like Mr Fothergill’s and Suttons have a wider choice of varieties. If you do grow plants from seed:

Sow 2 or 3 seeds to a 9cm pot or Jiffy 7 pellet under glass (60-65o F) from February – April for greenhouse cultivation, or in April for planting out doors.

Keep seedlings moist, but never over water, and provide plenty of light and enough warmth to avoid any check.

Thin to one strong seedling per pot or pellet, and pot pellet grown seedlings into 9 cm pots when roots show.

Plant greenhouse plants into final stations when 6-9 inches tall, before they grow crowded in the pot, keeping frost free.

Harden off outdoor plants and plant out in late May/ early June, protecting from frost if necessary.

Using Bought in Tomato Plants

Choose compact, dark green plants. Reject any which are pale, leggy, or have yellowing leaves.

Plant in a frost free greenhouse from late March, or outdoors from late May/ early June, protecting from frost if necessary.

Tomato Cultivation

Plants may be grown in well prepared soil (but don’t plant in the same place in successive years), or in pots or in grow bags in the greenhouse. Outdoors plant out in open soil, raised vegetable beds (again not in the same place in successive years), pots or grow bags.

Support with stakes or twine cordon varieties with stakes or twine as soon as they are planted out.

Keep well watered, especially pot or grow bag grown plants, but avoid over- watering. ‚”Feast and famine” will produce tough bitter fruit.

Pinch out all side shoots appearing at the junction of leaf and stem in cordon varieties. If these are allowed to develop, the plant will dissipate its strength on excessive green growth.

If flowers are slow to set in still weather or in a greenhouse help fertilisation by brushing or a light mist spray.

On cordon varieties grown in a greenhouse, pinch off top growth once 7 trusses have set, or 6 trusses for plants grown outdoors.

More on growing tomatoes in growbags and containers.

Pest and Diseases.

Watch out for whitefly eelworm and red spidermite, and treat as necessary.

Remove and burn any foliage affected by viruses or mould.

More on tomato pests and diseases.