Tomatoes

[Chelsea14Ian]

Since a little boy I have loved tomatoes. We lived with my grand parents. My Grandfather  always grow Tom's and yet he never would eat them.I always  went and had the odd Tom.Tomatoes and mushrooms could make me a veggie. Bacon would stop me.Tomatoes have so many uses.I am not a bad gardener.Sadly won't  win medals at Chelsea football.or flower show.I have 3 Tom plants not bad amount of fruit,but would welcome advice on training the plants.

Ian

[grendel]

I tried training tomatoes, but the pots just fell off the back of the treadmill.

[thingamybob]

Either train them up long canes or string, pick out all the side shoots and let them go as high as five trusses and then pick out the growing shoot at the top to stop growth. This year I tried another method. I let the plants branch once and trained each shoot up a separate string but I still limited each plant to five trusses. 

Give them a good feed once a week once the first truss has formed. There is no need to use Tomorite fertiliser, I use Aldi's or Wilkinsons tomato feed which is just as good and much cheaper. I have had a bumper crop from my seven plants this year.

Pull off any yellowing leaves with a sharp downward pull and get them away from the plants and trim off any bits of fungus infected plants. I do not use pesticides or fungicides on my tomatoes so a bit of fungus can occur.

If you do get a bumper crop tomatoes freeze well and you could try making tomato jam, you would never realise that the jam was made from tomatoes.

[Edit] Since tomatoes like an acidic soil I have used ericaceous compost for the last two years with very good results.

Happy growing and eating!