Tomato Growing Thread 2012

I'd like to join this thread if I may - although I'm not sure if my efforts are so much growing as killing tomatoes..

My second year growing tomatoes - the first year I was growing on a balcony from seed. I didn't thin/pot on and my leggy plants produced one fruit, before getting neglected and scorched!

This year I have a garden, but it's not very sunny so I thought I'd grow in a container where I could protect them a bit. I have four plants, bought from an allotment society, don't know what variety but they're not climbers and they might be a dwarf variety?

Anyway, they are looking very droopy and sad with leaf curling (posted about this in another thread and someone directed me here). I've been doing inside/outside because I'm in west yorks and I was worried they would get too cold. And they're all in one window box, which maybe is a mistake. It's quite a big deep one though. And I need to stake them better because the little bamboo stakes I used are no longer cutting it!

Aaaaanyway the other thing that is alarming me is that they have what looks like blisters on the stem?



Any advice/experience/tales of woe much appreciated..

 

Hi Reetgood, glad you've found the Tom thread. I have days when I wish I'd taken up knitting instead too,

 

Fc, The blisters are up the stem to about the three quarter mark, so I'm not sure if they're roots or not? Do they go up that far? Yeah, they are a bit err leggy. I am an expert tomato killer!

Jenny, thanks for the direction here. Yeah I tried knitting...;p At least with knitting things don't die!

 

A progress update of the M askotkas .The 3 in a pot and the rest in 2 window boxes. I could count 40 tomatoes there but whether they will get to go red is anyone's guess.

 

Looking pretty good to me Jenny

 

Looking good Jenny....

 

Why thank you guys . Perhaps it is all worth it. Well , just for one day,

 

phew. The problem with gardening and google is that I had started to acquaint myself with all sorts of plant diseases.

I've managed to resurrect my mini greenhouse and put them in there. More as a wind barrier and sort of cage support than anything else as i haven't got anything else in there! They are a bit leggy, so I'm supporting them by tying ribbons in a loop from the shelf above and letting them rest in the loop. Very festive.

I'm considering splitting them to be in two window boxes rather than all four in one. I think I'll give them a chance to adjust to being outside before I do that though.

 

reetgood,
following advice from the GC Tom gurus, I planted mine on their sides as they were a bit leggy. They loved it!!

 

On their side? Are the instructions back in this thread? Hmmmmm. We may see some interesting repotting later in the week...

 

Couple of things:

Tomatoes will grow roots from their stems, so burying some stem helps with this, and supposedly increases the plants ability to take up nutrients. Planting on their side avoiding having to make a really deep hole, or use a very deep pot - but planting deep, or using a "Tomato ring culture" pot (basically a pot with no bottom) to allow adding compost around the stem will do (as will a pot or Asda flower bucket with the bottom knocked out).

Second, Tomatoes tend to hit the roof in a greenhouse quite early (mine have already) which limits fruit carrying, but there are no flowers on the first 18" - 24" of the plant, so if you can bury that you increase the amount of "fruiting height" that the plant has in the greenhouse.

However, planting "on its side" is not straightforward as you can't exactly make a 90-dress bend in the stem! and if you are using pots you are unlikely to have enough "width", but whatever ingenuity you come up with for burying some of the stem will most bear fruit <Sorry!>