Tomato Growing 2024

Does your conservatory not have ventilation, it just like greenhouse growing if it has. I prefer pots to grow bags.

Outside, go for one of the blight resistant varieties, pick a sunny sheltered spot and start reasonably early but not too early, maybe aim for planting out in mid June, later is better than too soon IMO.

 

2 roof holes. Sadly the lower ones we can't open fully as weve got cats!

Roughly what size of pots do you use? Just all john innes nunber 3 compost or what? I know there are so many varieties but are bigger ones easier than the smaller types for trailing?

Thanks

 

I use 12 in pots with just multipurpose compost, JI would be OK but lots of it these days seems a bit muddy and claggy if used on its own.
A 50:50 mix of both is something I like.

Obviously you need to feed after the first fruits are set.

 

Cheers Pete! Do you stake them or how do you ensure they don't fall over? Maybe only a concern with heavier and bigger cropping toms? I really need to look into it more, thanks for the help

 

Primabella, Iron Lady, Mountain Magic and the commercial "Crimson" series are all strongly blight resistant, at least they claim this. You can help prevent blight by keeping rain off the leaves... good luck with that!
If you can pop a window open and keep them watered almost all toms can be grown in greenhouses. Theyre predominately high altitude tropical plants.
With irelands rain i recommend staking well and sturdily.

 

In the greenhouse I support the the plants with string, just winding it around the stems as they grow, but out side I use wooden stakes, they can get quite heavy when fully loaded in mid summer.

 

Sowed a sneaky Sungold. It's the only variety my mother likes and I got the "I'm ninety in a few weeks. No time to waste." talk this morning. Popped in a Chocolate Sprinkles to keep it company.

 

I'd say it's easier to provide some shade than to battle blight, @Greecko. Speaking from experience, my best performer in the 2021 Blightmare was Chadwick Cherry (pictured). It was my last outdoor plant standing. Lizzano, a tumbling F1, also kept going despite me having to lop off a blighted branch.

 

Can I ask why you remove the leaves? do they not need them for sugar production? Or is it to stop blight contact area

 

There are a couple of reasons for removing the leaves - the lower ones especially. One is to let more light into the plants & also to keep them off the ground, helps to prevent diseases when it rains & stops rain splashes from lifting up the blight spores & depositing them on the leaves. You generally remove leaves from covering the trusses of tomatoes so light & air & sunshine can get to the fruit to help them ripen. Blight spores need a film of water on the leaves to be able to infect them.

As I grow tomatoes on a balcony with a roof mine never get wet so in over 20 years of growing them here I have only had blight just once - & that was probably my fault as I went out onto the balcony without changing my clothes after removing lots of badly blight affected tomatoes on the allotment I had then
.

 

So ripeness is sun related? I figured it was just an energy and time issue. Interesting, thanks.

 

I'd pulled up the rest of the outdoor plants that day, due to blight. CC remained healthy -looking, so I decided to strip the plant right down to get a few more days of outdoor sun for the fruits. Removing all the leaves also left a much smaller surface area for lurking blight spores to land upon.