THE TOMATO GROWING THREAD 2018

Those tomatoes look lovely. Looks so cute that San Marzano. I've got one truss flowers on my Marzano but no fruit yet.

 

Hi everyone I was at the allotment early this morning before it got too hot.

And someone said to me that I should have the tomatoes growing in pots as they poison or leech something into the soil, has anyone heard of this?

It’s something I’ve not heard of before.

Thanks

James

 

Temps now in greenhouse. Got door wide open and window

 

I bought these through the post. They've doubled in size in a few weeks. I'm new to growing and welcome any advice. I have been told to wait for the first flowers...trusses?....then start adding tomato feed every other water

 

Perhaps they are concerned about potato blight (which can affect members of the Solanaceae family including tomatoes) - either the site is susceptible to blight or they fear that you might introduce it.

 

Has anybody used watering spikes in tomatoes and veggies? And are they any good?

I found some in the garage and thought about putting them in my tomatoes, and cucumbers when we go away. Although neighbours water them, they are elderly and I think sometimes they forget or don’t water enough.

 

Hi Jane
Some of the tomato plants you are looking at on here are grown by very experienced growers and were started very early in the year with heat and supplementary lighting.
My first ones that I have been eating since May were started January, My next batch which were started in February started producing ripe fruit in June, The next batch I started in March are just colouring up now. The grafted plants I bought in at 3 for £9.99 plus £5 post and pack, I will be lucky to get any ripe fruit in August from these, Looking at your photo's my bought in plants are way behind your plants. I am assuming (never assume it makes an ass out of you and me) you did not have light and heat but bought young plants, If so and this is your first season you have done very very well. If you watched gardeners world it showed Monty tying in his tomatoes and they are way behind yours.
and you will be eating your own tomatoes very soon.
To answer your question about Wilko's and high potash feed , I looked at their web site and all they sell is chemical fertilisers which I do not use so can not recommend.
If you have a good seaweed based tomato fertiliser such as maxicrop organic tomato feed it will have plenty of potash (K)

 

Yes, but I would potentially use 2L bottles.

 

I thought I was doing something wrong. So they should definitely ripen before end summer. All the plants I have came from seed I started in March in a heated propagator on my windowsill so guess I've done ok up to now to keep them alive when I don't know what I'm doing. Thanking you all on this lovely site for all the help and advice you have all given me.