Tomato Growing Thread 2023

Shade cloth is a good choice as Luke says. I have old bamboo window blinds that I drape over the top, so can easily take off on cloudy days.

Mine has still been hitting 41c, but my plants are 4 ft tall now and seem tough enough to stand it. I suggested 35C because your smaller plants may get scorched in full sun, a lot depends how shaded your greenhouse is, if there are no nearby trees it may get rather hot.

 

Personally I would have gone for just one in a pot that size, both tomatoes and cucumbers get really big. Plus tomatoes hate to be crowded and touching each other, it can make them susceptible to fungal diseases.

Not heard of this before and can't think of a reason to do it. I can't see it will do any harm provided its not a mountain of teabags.

 

That doesn't sound too good for a cordon type, have you a photo as I'm wondering if they have lots of side shoots.

We used to be able to buy Bordeaux Mixture which did the trick but was banned a few years back. It's still possible to legally buy the two chemicals that make Bordeaux mixture and mix your own, but not legal to then use it to spray on your plants. Same goes for any ad hoc mix of chemicals. It's one of the reasons I went down the blight resistant variety route. Whilst Bordeaux Mixture kept my crops disease free the fruit had to be carefully washed as the copper residue is not good for you, same probably for that YouTube guy as it's copper that is the active agent.

Interesting idea, will be keen to see the photos.

Good result with stopping early blight, I thought your crop was going to fail.

I use aspirin every year as there is some science behind it, trials have shown that the active ingredient salicylic acid triggers a response in tomatoes that increases its defence against diseases. Plus it improves the nutrition. James Wong wrote about this some years back and I've tested it, it certainly increases the sugar levels (I found by about 10%) hence the treated tomatoes taste better. However I still have had blight even after spraying with aspirin, but the plants don't immediately die as is usual with late blight. With regular pruning of diseased leaves they can linger on to the end of the season as I've managed in the last couple of years.

https://twitter.com/Botanygeek/status/1268513099583283203

 

They look very good @burnie

 

Has anyone tried TomatoGo feed? NPK is 8-13-36 plus trace elements.
I'm currently using chempak 4 which seems ok but there's a lot of growth and not as many flowers as I'd like

 

A definite possibility, likely even