TIME FOR TOMATOES
Tomato growing has always been one of the gardening
challenges with great rewards when you pick that first fruit fully ripened on
the bush, and then followed by loads more as the season progresses. Summer
salads would never be complete without some home grown tomatoes.
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| Beefsteak tomato |
At this time of year they are available in the supermarkets,
but you struggle very hard to find a ripe one with some flavour, though we did
find a small red cherry one on the vine, to go with our salads with lettuce
leaves and spring onions fresh from the greenhouse. They had been sown last
autumn to utilise the greenhouse borders over the winter months.
Early March is soon enough to sow the seed as I germinate
mine at home on a warm windowsill growing them on a few weeks before they go
into my cold greenhouse. If any frost or cold nights threaten them I have an
electric heater to keep them protected over night.
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| Alicante tomato |
Sow them thinly in shallow trays in seed compost and keep
them warm for germination. They are generally very easy to grow so germination
is usually good. Prick them out into individual small pots once they have made
strong seed leaves and only handle them by the leaves, (not the stem)
As my windowsill space is limited I keep them as long as
possible in small pots, but soon they will need a bigger pot and transferred to
the greenhouse. Keep them growing in the pots until the first trusses show,
then they are ready for their permanent position.
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| Tomato Ilde |
There are several options to consider. Do you use large
pots, ring culture, grow bags, straw bales (very popular fifty years ago) or
border soil. I have tried all methods and while grow bags make life simple, it
is growing in fertile border soil that has given my tomatoes the greatest
flavour. This used to be the traditional method (many years ago) but
commercially the soil was sterilised every winter with steam injection or
chemically with chloropicrin. My fertile border soil has been composted and dug
every year and I got three years of great crops, but as I have no means of sterilising
the soil, last year my crop
Anyway I will try the border again this year, but then go back to
growbags in 2018. The border will have some fertiliser added then the tomatoes
planted about 18 inches apart. Once they get established and the first trusses
start to flower begin to feed the plants with a tomato feed every week.
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| Ring culture tomatoes |
Tomatoes grow on a single stemmed cordon that needs a strong
support especially when full of ripening fruit. I use six foot lengths of
polypropylene binder twine hung from roof wire supports and tied to the bottom
of the tomato plants which are then twisted around the twine as they grow.
Remove all sideshoots so the plant can use its energy for
fruiting. Remove the growing point after six to eight trusses or more if you
get a glorious summer as tomatoes love the heat.
There are plenty of varieties and different types to try out
from normal fruits such as Shirley or Alicante, cherry types such as Sweet
Million and Sungold, beef stake types, plum types and a good one for hanging
baskets or tubs is Tumbler.
Let the fruit fully ripen before picking and if you get more
tomatoes than you can handle they will make an excellent soup, or they can be
frozen for future use.
Wee jobs to do this week
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| Sampling first strawberry in May |
There is nothing to
beat picking that first strawberry in early summer. Our target date was first
week in June in my youth when Red Gauntlet was favourite down in Sussex. Today
we have so many new varieties to choose from that you can try a few and see
which ones suit your location and conditions best. However, to bring on them on
a fortnight earlier cover a row with a low polythene tunnel held up with metal
hoops. Last year I picked my first berries on 22 May, but with the mild winter
we are running ahead so could be even earlier this year. Fingers crossed!!!
END
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