Tomato Growing 2024

Me too @pete but my less is a lot more than yours!

Last year I grew 2 each of a dozen varieties in the polytunnel and had enough left over for a 5m x 1.25m bed outside. I like to try a few new ones now I'm living somewhere sunny enough to get good ones and am not surrounded by Belgian Bintjes which meant I'd get blight.

I do bottle a lot of them as reduced sauce for winter soups, casseroles and sauces and I dry enough to make a few jars in oil to go on Bruschetta and baked fennel with goats cheese. The rest get eaten like sweeties if small or served up in salads or oven baked dishes.

This year I've bought in 9 plants including 3 types of Ananas cos I forgot to order seed. i'll also be giving spare home-sown seedlings to friends.

 

As a newbie, first time tomato grower, can I ask the collective a couple of open ended, ballpark type questions to give me a rough idea.

1) how many plants or perhaps what percentage, do you expect to lose from seedling to cropping plant? I ask as I've had a great germination success ,so far haven't lost any seedlings yet and they are now at a 1ft plus size. I'm just wondering if I've been lucky but they haven't had to put up with predation or the elements yet, so I don't know how many to keep as just in case plants.

2) how many plants do you need? I know it depends on how productive, the species or even how many you eat but for one person would I likely need 2 plants per species or 10.

I don't mind surplus of either plants or tomatoes because we have a couple of charity plant sales coming up our allotment donates surplus produce to the local church/food bank.

 

1) In all my years of growing tomatoes I can't think of a single loss from seedling to planting out. These days I only sow what I need and don't bother with backups.

2) I like variety so usually grow a dozen varieties each year, mostly just one of each. I'll do a couple extra of old favourites like Green Zebra and Sungold.

Tomatoes are surprisingly tough, as long as they don't get cold, and are an excellent beginner plant so you should be confident of success. There's a lot of mystique around growing them, but I've always found them straightforward.

 

I tend to find tomatoes to be an easy plant to grow, Apart from blight I dont think much bothers them.

 

@Thevictorian As long as they don't get too cold when small and you can maintain regular watering - not drowning, but even levels - so they don't get blossom end rot, tomatoes are quite easy to grow and don't need cossetting. You can even root new ones from the shoots you snip off in the axils of determinate varieties.

How many you need depends on what you do with your tomatoes. I bottle a lot of mine as passata and do semi-dried cherry toms in olive oil and herbs as well as eating them fresh in salads, summer casseroles, tarts, soups...... If you're not preserving them you'll need far fewer plants.

 

Well if we're showing off our babies ...These are mostly Outdoor Girl which is a cordon type, I've only grown bush type before. On the right are a few Veranda Red. I have also grown 3 Minibel plants which are at about the same stage as the Veranda Red. They are all just getting their second pair of true leaves.

 

Yes @Obelix-Vendée , I think people underestimate the light, and focus on heat for toms.

As @Loofah says, the big advantage is that you can, and should, bury toms a bit deeper when potting on.
I only grow around 4 plants, cherry/plum toms - as they suit us best. They do a decent enpugh job for us for meals, and the odd bit of bruschetta. I don't usually have spares to cook/freeze, but if I do, that's what happens with them.

 

My toms are needing potted on. I've only managed to have them outside twice this year, last year they were stockier and a bit healthier but I'm sure they'll be fine in the end. They'll go into 500ml yoghurt pots for another two weeks before going into the greenhouse border, although the outside ones will be potted on another time into maybe 3l pots

 

I have potted on a number of tomatoes, more to do over the weekend. They have really shot up this week.

 

I have lost a few small seedlings to snails over the year, once they get to 2-3 in tall they seem to be too hairy for molluscs.

 

I've had tiny snails eating the toms @NigelJ , and I have a photo somewhere, but the biggest thief was a magpie, when I'd opened the doors up for ventilation, and I found some lying on the ground outside. I puzzled over who had done it, then saw him/her the next day. Cheeky b*gger!

 

@fairygirl while I haven't had a magpie taking tomatoes, I have had slugs, snails and a number of different moth caterpillars feeding on them, resulting in late night pest hunts with a head torch.
Caterpillars include Hebrew character, Tomato moth and Silver Y, they don't touch the plants though.

 

I get Silver Y moths @NigelJ , although I don't know if they touch the toms, but slugs are the big problem here - for everything. My plants don't go out to the gr'house until they're a good size though, which probably helps.
I don't really grow them outdoors either, although I left a few spares out last year which did ok, but it was our hottest, driest summer on record in this part of the country, so that will have helped