Growing tomatoes

JohnB47

It's a pity some people are throwing out 'leggy' tomato plants. 

I always remove the bottom leaves and plant them very deep. This is because a tomato plant will produce roots from any part of the stem that's in the growing medium.

In fact, I do the above and plant them in a half filled large pot. Then, as the plant grows, I add more compost. A bit like earthing up potatoes. This produces a huge root mass.

This  is exactly what you could get by planting a leggy specimen deeply in the compost/soil.

Nobbie1967

Just pricked out my Brandywine, Sungold and Gardeners Delight into 2” cells and my purple cherry toms are just emerging. Still all under the LED grow light in a cupboard out of the way. Second sowing of Gardeners delight with new seed from B&Q seems to have failed completely. Don’t think I’ll bother with B&Q for seed again as have had many failures.

silverwhistle

Today I planted out a couple of 20cm. Marmande plants against a south facing wall in the south and under large, well secured, bell cloches. A bit early perhaps but I've got more plants available if it all goes disastrously wrong, and it will be nice to see my windowsills again!

Dustyevsky

Nobbie1967 said:

 Second sowing of Gardeners delight with new seed from B&Q seems to have failed completely. Don’t think I’ll bother with B&Q for seed again as have had many failures.

I don't bother with Gardeners' Delight either, since it's doubtful many of the seeds sold as those are true to the originals nowadays.

droopsnoot

Interesting about GD - I sowed equal quantities of those and Money Maker, and I currently have five GD and only two MM seedlings coming up, with a possible further one of each. I've actually sowed some more MM seeds to try to balance the numbers out.

Last year my plants went very "long" (is this what you guys call "leggy"? ) meaning they took up a  lot of room in the lean-to. I seem to recall my Mum talking about pinching out central leaves to stop them doing that, but at what point should I do that? When they get to the size I'd like them to stay at, or earlier?

JohnB47

droopsnoot said:

Interesting about GD - I sowed equal quantities of those and Money Maker, and I currently have five GD and only two MM seedlings coming up, with a possible further one of each. I've actually sowed some more MM seeds to try to balance the numbers out.

Last year my plants went very "long" (is this what you guys call "leggy"? ) meaning they took up a  lot of room in the lean-to. I seem to recall my Mum talking about pinching out central leaves to stop them doing that, but at what point should I do that? When they get to the size I'd like them to stay at, or earlier?

I tried Gardeners (GD) delight last year as well as Sungold - GD cropped well and were tasty but the skins were a bit tough. I'm going for Sungold only this year. Always reliable and taste very good.

As for growing, the advice is to wait until five trusses have appeared, then nip off the central tip of the main growing stem. Up to that point you should also be nipping off the little side shoots that appear up the main stem - the ones that are not trusses, that is. A truss is a side shoot from the main stem that has a spray of tomatoes on it.

The above advice doesn't apply to bush type tomato plants, where you don't nip off side shoots (I've never grown that type).

The five truss idea is to suit our climate here in the UK - let more grow and the tomatoes might not ripen before Autumn comes.

You don't have to be rigid with this though. If you grow in a pollytunnel or greenhouse, you could get good results by letting more trusses form because the growing and ripening stages would be quicker. Also, you might actually be happy to have some green tomatoes in Autumn.

Leggy plants suggests lack of light, or maybe food. You should feed with a tomato fertilizer once a week when the first flowers fall off and little green tomatoes appear.

RobM99

Woohoo ! I have 16 assorted tom' seedlings!

droopsnoot

JohnB47 said:

droopsnoot said:

Interesting about GD - I sowed equal quantities of those and Money Maker, and I currently have five GD and only two MM seedlings coming up, with a possible further one of each. I've actually sowed some more MM seeds to try to balance the numbers out.

Last year my plants went very "long" (is this what you guys call "leggy"? ) meaning they took up a  lot of room in the lean-to. I seem to recall my Mum talking about pinching out central leaves to stop them doing that, but at what point should I do that? When they get to the size I'd like them to stay at, or earlier?

As for growing, the advice is to wait until five trusses have appeared, then nip off the central tip of the main growing stem. Up to that point you should also be nipping off the little side shoots that appear up the main stem - the ones that are not trusses, that is. A truss is a side shoot from the main stem that has a spray of tomatoes on it.

Leggy plants suggests lack of light, or maybe food. You should feed with a tomato fertilizer once a week when the first flowers fall off and little green tomatoes appear.

Thanks. As I recall it, the plants were very long and straggly before anything seemed to be happening in terms of flowers or actual tomatoes, but I'll keep it in mind this year. I do try to remember to give them tomato food once a week, I can't say I never miss a week though. These are on the window-sill inside the house for now, once it gets a bit warmer I put them in a lean-to greenhouse. I'll try to clear enough space in the proper greenhouse in case the lean-to is too "one-sided" as it's in shadow until after lunch-time.

Nobbie1967

Just dropped into the garden centre to get some seeds and noticed they’d got the tomato plants in. When I bought some a couple of years ago they were £1.25 each which I thought was pretty reasonable given how much some of the seeds cost, but they are now £2.50! Glad I’m growing my own now.

Novice_investor101

I bought a Gardener’s Delight plant from Aldi for £1.59. It’s currently on a windowsill after being potted on to a slightly bigger pot. It’s my backup plant. 

I bought Gardener’s Delight & Plum tomato (don’t know the name) seeds & attempted growing from seed for the first time. To say I had no idea, (I used 2x6 trays some Petunias came in to sow & put way too many seeds in) they’ve all sprouted. I pulled some of the shoots out to leave 3 or 4 in each little pot. 

They’re all a bit leggy but have the first set of true leaves. I’m going to attempt potting them on at the weekend. I’ve got 12 small plant pots & only 4 big planters I was going to use to grow the plants. Anything that survives & I can’t keep I’ll pass on to the neighbours.