TOMATOES

for the first time in my life, i am going to have a go at growing tomatoes.
due to the tasteless tomatoes we have been purchasing at the supermarkets i am going to attempt to grow my own:(. what is the procedure ? is it grow bags with tomato plants, do i must have a green house. my back garden is a sun trap with a high fence and trees. this cuts out any cold east wind blowing across the garden. which i think is advantageous to my quest!. question were do i start??
music .

 

Try a reliable, easy-to-grow variety like 'Gardeners Delight'. You don't need a greenhouse, especially in a sun-trap garden. Growbags aren't ideal, but they are easy and will work. Do them from seed - cheaper and more satisfying than buying plants.

1) Sow the seeds indoors in the next couple of weeks. Fill a small pot with moist compost (ordinary multi-purpose will do). Put 2-3 seeds in each pot, and pop them on a windowsill indoors.

2) When the seeds germinate, pinch out any extra seedlings so you are left with just 1 plant per pot. Keep the compost moist.

3) Around the end of April, start taking your seedlings outdoors for a few hours a day to get them used to being outside. After a week or so of that, transfer your toms to big pots filled with compost.

4) Water frequently, feed the plants with tomato feed when the flowers start to appear, give them canes for support, and pinch out the side shoots so you have one big main stem. In a sunny spot like you have, you'll get a massive crop in summer.

OR, even easier.

1) Wait till April-ish. Sow seeds in a growbag, leaving no more than 2 plants per bag when they germinate. Support with canes, water, feed, and pinch out side shoots as described above.

Your crop won't be as good, but it'll be OK.

This is actually how I got into gardening years ago. Started with a few toms, got the bug badly, and now border on the obsessive!

 

Hello Music, I'm in Perhshire and I grow tomatoes outside very successfully.
Like you I have a sunny, sheltered garden. I grow the tomatoes in 12" pots and stand them against a sunny wall. The anount of heat that comes off the wall is tremendous.
Grow as Andrew says, but I would add the following.
Varieties which have done well outdoors for me are Tigerella, Red Cherry and if you want to try a bush tomato Garden Pearl.
I grow them indoors to start with in 3 " pots. Once I can see roots at rhe bottom of the pots I move them into 5" pots. I leave them in the 5" pots until they start to come into flower, usually about the same time as the roots appear at the bottom. I find they come into flower much earlier this way than putting them in a 12" pot too early.
Once flower buds appear move them up to 12" pots with a stake.
Start hardening them off to live outside once frost is over.
I don't like grow bags for tomatoes. I find the watering hard to judge.
Good luck and hope you get a bumper crop.

 

music - you will taste the difference and it will be wonderful. i usually buy a few tomato plants as i find this much easier than seed but its personal preference

i use grow bags for my toms and copied gardners prog where they cut a growbag in half (right across the middle) and then had two tub like growbags - these are also easier to water and allows for deeper roots
we ate loads of our toms last year straight off the plant - they didnt even get as far as the kitchen. i also grow basil in a pot on the patio cos theres nothing like the mix of tomato and basil

good luck

loopy

 

What a good idea, may try that myself: put off using growbags up to now for the watering issue. In fact had been looking at several piles of redundant plastic reusable bag for life type supermarket bags that have dodgy handles, small tears/holes etc and considering using them as impromptu pots for cucumber and similar greenhouse plants due to compact size/shape. May still do so but the grow bag pot sounds even easier

Garden Pearl (cherry) always come up well: tend to sow early and move on out to unheated greenhouse to get them going and then do some Red Cherry April-ish. Did buy a beefsteak seedling from Tesco last year (reduced, knocked about a bit) and that did very well in large pot

 

Was never a fan of grow bags (think i was influenced years ago by a Bob Flowerdew talk) Just dont think their big enough. However I really like the look of these (im sure a cheap alternative could be made based on the principal) http://www.selections.com/GF952/grow-pots-set-of-3/

Even moisture is crucial with toms and if this does as advertised (no personal experience using them) it could really help with that.

Has anyone ever tried the traditional gravel ring culture method, would be really interested to here if people had tried it.

 

are there different rules for growing YELLOW TOMATOES?. as i was thinking,' in for a penny in for a pound' ,why not have a go at a few different types of tomatoes to see the best yield which will grow better to the conditions in my garden . thank you. music .

 

oh music - you are becoming tomato adventurous - enjoy

loopy

 

I grow mine in buckets from Morrisons,I think they are the ones the cut flowers have been in,very cheap eight for a Pound.I grow quite a few different sorts,sungold is tasty,gardeners delight,yellow cherry and a couple with larger fruit,I will try a couple of the ones free on Garden Newsthis week.

 

Hi Music. No different rules for yellow or even black toms. They're all Toms.:wink:

 

Here's another Scottish slant on it Music.
I delay sowing my outdoor toms until late March. I sow in a heated propagator in small trays and pot first into recycled polystyrene cups and then like Alice into 5" pots. I plant out when about 5" tall, and when I see roots appearing at the base of the pots, into a narrow south facing bed against my greenhouse wall. From about 6 or 7 plants we get more than we can use fresh so we dry the surplus which keeps us going until the following summer and also pick and store the last green ones to ripen indoors. This year we were eating the last few ripened green ones in late December.
I grow Gardener's Delight for my outdoor crop - they are so sweet and tasty.
If you can plant in soil it's much better than bags or pots - you'll get a bigger crop and they seem to taste better too.

I'll sow my greenhouse toms at the end of next week and the ones destined for our small polytunnel in early March.

 

This will be mt third year to grow Toms. Most plants were outside so the wet weather limited growth and had to harvest many just before blight took hold. There were too many to ripen so I looked up recipes and found one for green tomato relish. It's gorgeous with cheese or cold meats. So we are growing some extra plants this year especially to harvest some green ones (hoping for a good Summer!!!) So every cloud has a silver lining.
Sheelagh :thmb:

 

Last year I grew some Japanese Black Triffel tomatoes,everyone voted them the tops.

 

Hi Sparky, you have got me really interested now!! A BLACK TOMATO! i have never heard of it .
this is another one for the book. as LoopyLou said earlier i am becoming" tomato adventurous ".
i will have to sit down and select which tomatoes i am going to attempt to grow this year.
i did not know there were so many varieties of tomatoes. thanks all, the posts all sound good.
could i have RED/YELLOW/BLACK tomatoes this year???? watch this space :wink: music.

 

and stripey ones! tigrella

Loopy