Top tips for growing tomatoes in your own garden
It's difficult to think anything but pleasant thoughts while eating a homegrown tomato.
Lewis Grizzard
If you’ve followed my blog for any length of time you’ll know I’m not the greatest gardener in the world but I do like to get out there and have a little green fingered me time! Around ten years ago, I thought it might be fun to have a go at growing my own tomatoes – I’d been to a friend’s house and she’d given me a sample of her own homegrown produce and they were yummy! I vowed that the following year I’d have a go after all if my friend can do it surely, I could – how wrong can a person be!
I bought some tubs, filled them with specific tomato friendly compost and stuck ten tiny plants I’d bought at my local garden centre – simples! At first, they were doing really well and were shooting up! Sadly, this wasn’t going to continue and I ended up harvesting four tiny toms which didn’t have any taste at all – in fact I only ate one!
Since then, I’ve done some reading and spoken to a couple of “experts” in this particular field, turn out lots of people with good intentions have a crack at growing toms which is a very odd choice. On the scale of veg growing difficulty that goes from 1, easy, pea shoots and mustard cress – (I remember growing mustard cress at school!) through to 10, extremely difficult, vanilla pods I believe are almost impossible (OK I just invented that scale, but let me run with this...) tomatoes score about a 7 so I’m told.
They have a short harvest window, are vulnerable to blight and other problems, and are susceptible to frost, so have to be toted in and out of the house all spring until it's warm enough to put them outside day and night!
Having said that, having adapted my techniques over the last few years, I can now muster a reasonably good crop which I’ve shared with friends who appear to like the flavour – unless of course they’re just being nice! Here’s a few top tips that have stood me in good stead over the years!
You can of course buy young plants at this time of the year which is a great way to start however, there’s something really quite amazing about watching tiny seedlings sprouting from your own handiwork and to be honest, this is one of the easy stages of the growing process, it’s maybe a tad too late now but have a go! Using a heated propagator, unless you have a particularly warm south facing window sill). Sow an early variety if you want the quickest possible harvest (Your garden centre will be able to give you specific advice around this). When you pot them into their own pots, use good quality peat-free compost as this can make all the difference to early growth, again, ask your friendly garden centre!
The number one error in the month of May is being lulled into a false sense of security by the weather and planting tomatoes out too early. Tomatoes stop growing once the temperature drops below 10-12C at night, and ideally, they need 15C in the day. Frost will kill them, so wait until the frost risk is completely over before sending them outside for good – which is the end of May in my neck of the woods, which as you know is in London). Right now, my tomato plants are ensconced in old washing up bowls so they can be whisked in and out of the house morning and evening to make the most of the sun, but also gain some protection at night – keep a close eye on the weather forecast!
Make sure you plant the seedlings out deeply – I usually plant to the depth of the first leaf, which I then remove – as this helps a strong root system to develop. If you look closely at the lower stem of a tomato, you'll see bumps, if you plant these below soil level, they'll produce roots – who knew, I certainly didn’t!!
Add fertiliser as they grow, but not too much: overfeeding can dilute the flavour. I tend to use regular additions of comfrey tea and Maxicrop seaweed plant food.
Remove any shoots that appear between the main stem and leaves emerging from it. Why? These cause the plants to divide their fruiting energy between two stems, weakening the plant and stopping it from producing fruit – this is a really important thing to remember, you can just simply snap them off with your finger and thumb.
I initially advised to remove the lower leaves as the plant develops, but the collective wisdom now is that this doesn't really help produce good fruits. If the lowest pair of leaves start to go yellow and the rest of the plant is healthy, cut them away, but don't be too brutal!
Water daily if they are being grown in a growbag or container. Help the water to sink in rather than running off by making a shallow indentation in the soil around the plant – if you really want to ensure the water gets to the roots, when planting out you can sink a plastic bottle, bottom chopped off and cap removed, into the soil next to the plant to act as a funnel.
Tie the growing stem onto a sturdy stick to stop it toppling over, adding new ties as the plant grows: for a large, strong plant this may be as frequently as every three inches.
Once four or five “trusses” have formed, pinch out the main growing stem to halt the plant's growth. If you have no clue what I’m talking about, here’s a handy 15 second video. Halting the plants growth like this will force the plant to put all its energies into producing the fruits already forming rather than spreading itself too thin.
Pick the ripe tomatoes regularly, taking the time to rub the leaves between your fingers and suck in the delicious tomato plant smell! It's one of a veg grower's great pleasures (this also applies to blackcurrant bushes)!
What have you got to lose, go on, give it a go!
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