The Final Tomato Questions ?

It seems like half of us on here are growing toms for the first time. The answers and advice from the experienced members has been priceless. You have talked us newbies through all the growing stages and answered our very basic questions. Thank you all for that !!
Now inevitably just 2 more questions...............
My plants have grown , 3 in a grow bag. I have cut off the growing tip when they were tall enough. The tomatoes are forming on the trusses.....................
Q1 - I have now started feeding with tomato feed , as the fruit develops. I heard that tomato plants take gallons of water at this stage. I just seem to give them a pint every 3 days and the compost is still nice and moist , and I have cut drain holes in my grow bags. Is this OK or should I be feeding more?

Q2 - When the toms form do I leave them on the plant until thay are 100% red , or remove them when they are still a touch green ?

TIA

 

Harry, I am assuming they are in a greenhouse? If so, I would water every day, especially if you`ve put drainage holes in the bag. ( Which I would do as well ). Also I would only feed once a week, if you overfeed you will taste it when you come to eat them. As for harvesting, if they are 75% ripe and you want to pick them, then do so. They will finish ripening in the warmth of the house.

 

Smiffy, I'm a bit concerned about the pint of water every three days.

Growbags can stay very dry, and if so the roots tend not to go right into the bag, but just stay in the moist bit.
I'd guess that on warm days they should need watering perhaps twice a day, if in the greenhouse and definitly more than a pint.

Another problem with grow bags is that if the sun shines directly onto the bag, the roots can cook.
Not something that happens if the plants have plenty of leaf though.

 

"The Final Tomato Questions"

Reminds me of a piece of software that came out in the '70s (or maybe early '80s) called "The Last One" because it was the Last piece of Software you would ever need, because it could write software.

A year later they brought out "The Last One Plus" Hahaha!

"I heard that tomato plants take gallons of water at this stage. I just seem to give them a pint every 3 days and the compost is still nice and moist , and I have cut drain holes in my grow bags. Is this OK or should I be feeding more?"

Feeding and watering are not (usually) the same thing.

I water my Toms, in pots in a greenhouse, 3 times a day. The amount they get depends on the weather. On a Sunny day (if we get one!) my 10L can would do about 8-10 plants in the morning, and probably 15 plants at lunch and again at 5pm. On a cloudy day they only need watering twice a day, and the water goes twice as far (as a rough guide).

My Toms have 7 or 8 trusses on them, so they are big plants, so they may need more water than yours.

I feed them with 80% of what the instructions say, twice a week (the instructions say every-other-watering, but my tomato fruits were splitting, which I think is a sign of either erratic watering [not the case here!] or over feeding - the fruit growing more quickly than its skin])

"When the toms form do I leave them on the plant until they are 100% red , or remove them when they are still a touch green"

I only pick them when they are 100% ripe. Supermarket tomatoes are picked green, and then get ripe on the shelf; why would I want to do the same with my home grown Toms? I recommend that you don't compromise on that, it will give you more flavour!!

 

I think for the feeding it is all a matter of choice. My grandpa wd pull a holy fit if he knew how much feed you are giving these plants... but it is true that he grows in the earth in italian summers not in a pot in a short northern season.

 

Hi all.
Something that seems to have worked out very well this year with gardener's delight cherry toms in the greenhouse, is using old rentacrates filled with compost to plant in - about 6 plants per crate plus a couple of aubergines. Watering is much simpler than pots (just bung in a can or two every other day or so, more if it's sunny)
I guess the size of the planting container means that it acts as a resevoir of sorts. Being rectangular, the containers also maximise the amount of soil available when they are placed next to each other. Regular pots are round, and slope in toward the bottom, so there is a lot of wasted space between them that could be used for soil. Coriander and basil have been sown around the bases of the plants to give some ground cover to help prevent evaporation, although you have to wait until the bottom tomato leaves have gone yellow and been removed, or the basil won't get enough light to grow properly.
This year I've been eating toms for a couple of weeks now, and the plants have neither wilted due to lack of water, or suffered split skins from overwatering, both of which happened in previous years.
The sweet and chilli peppers, and Okra have also been put in large rectangular plastic containers, and are thriving too. I won't go back to pots again!.

If you have a greenhouse, I really recommend trying this - time will tell, as always with gardening, but this year it looks like I'll get almost twice the crop from the greenhouse, and with less work! Bargain!

cheers,
Dave

 

what are rentacrates ??

 

Synthhead, Your method sounds like a good way to use loads of expensive compost. Why not just plant them in the ground and save all that money? I get perfectly good plants in pots, one growbag typically does four pots at least, and the pots sit on water reservoir containers full of re useable stones. My only extravagance is I've bought tomato bottomless pots but they should last for years.

 

As about half the compost is last year's, that was mixed with vegetable peelings, grass, cardboard and stuff and rotted down last autumn, it's not too expensive at all. With the weedkiller-in-manure and compost scare, I'll be building a new big 2 or 3-bay compost heap in the shady part of the garden in a couple of weeks time, and with any luck won't have to buy any compost at all next year.... I'm about to try making nettle feed as fertiliser - this should make things even cheaper.

Golcarlilly - rentacrates are just big plastic rectangular tubs, with small holes already in the base (as if they knew someone would use them for planting!) which are commonly used for removals. They're about 3' by 2' and about 16" high. I got some old ones that a mate had rescued from an old lock-up garage clearance.

Terrier - your method sounds like a good way of doing it. Mine is based on lack of money, and most importantly, often lack of time to regularly water (I'm single and self-employed). It doesn't look pretty - true, but it works Maximising the soil available for the plant has meant that the resevoir effect has helped greatly when regular watering has been difficult, the basil ground cover helps this, and gives some extra crops. Well, herbs. (you know what I mean). Simplicity of watering is an incidental benefit.
I'm only referring to the stuff in the greenhouse - crops outside are in the ground (except the spuds in old sacks and pots near the water-sucking leylandii )

The greenhouse has 3 vertical stages on 2 sides to get the maximum crops, and has a paving slab floor, so there is no option to plant directly in the ground. The slabs do act as a sort of heatsink, and there is a large black pedal bin insert full of water, that also acts as a heatsink, and gives off some evaporated water to help keep the humidity higher than it otherwise would be. This seems to help the stuff I grow in there - peppers, chillis, aubergines, okra and cherry toms. It's always surprisingly warmer in there than outside, even in winter.

I've only been doing this gardening thing for 4-5 years or so, and don't know whether this is unconventional or what, but so far the results have been extremely good this year, with no watering problems, even when I haven't been around enough. For someone like me who is on a very tight budget, and with a small garden/veggie plot that I rely on for some of my food, it has really worked out well.

I'll post some photos if anyone's interested, but that option seems not to be available to me in the permissions dialogue bit of this site. Don't know why.

anyway, cheers,
Dave

 

"sizes are your planned compost bins"

I think 3' x 3' (by 3' tall) is a good size to get some heat going. But I've relented (with everything else going on at the moment) and bought a couple of Daleks as our council are doing 330L ones at £20 - one by the veg patch, and one for kitchen / garden.

 

My suggestion would be that you can either take the front off, or the whole thing is kit-like (I want the latter, and that's why I haven't started ... as usual I've made a simple task into a three-part-mini-series!)

My thinking is that at times I generate large amounts of plant material - clearing a new area, or whatever, and therefore being able to just de-construct a bin, leaving the heap in-situ, and re-construct it alongside would suit me best.

I was planning to use joist-hangers (they look galvanised, but I'm not sure they would last)

You know all this, but think about how you will turn the heap. For me that would be from Container-A into Container-B, rather than out and back! but it needs some room to manoeuvre.

You have the benefit of a hill, so presumably you could start composting at the top and use gravity-assist :p to turn the compost into the next-lower bin. (Start at the bottom, stop when next bin is empty, if none then build another!)

There is this type of thing - slotted together - but you can't get the front off to unload / turn the material (30 quid for a cubic yard [almost] compost bin aint bad)

http://www.greenfingers.com/superstore/product.asp?dept_id=200337&pf_id=DS0263D



and then there is the slotted-removable-front type. Bit smaller :( and price goes up to a hundred quid :( :(

http://www.greenfingers.com/superstore/product.asp?dept_id=200337&pf_id=DD2537D



I've got some old wooden post-and-rail fence I took down last year that will do the job. And I was going to line it with a 1-tonne-bag.

But the 3-or-4-pallets type compost bin seems a good way to go too.