In any vote for the most popular food crop, tomatoes would win every time and if you can keep their foliage dry and give them lots of warmth, food, water and sun, theyre easy to grow and very productive.
But its not easy to juggle all these variables. People who make raised beds in greenhouses for tomatoes have the smoothest ride growing them. Tomatoes develop fast when their roots are in deep soil; a vigorous shake is all the pollination they need and the glass (or polyethylene) surround allows heat to build up.
The moist winds that spread tomato blight dont enter greenhouses, and watering and feeding is under the control of the gardener. This means foliage can stay dry and the gardener can provide the compost, well-rotted manure, fish fertilizers or organic fertilizer with high phosphorous (middle number) that tomatoes love.
People who grow tomatoes in the same spot year after year should change the soil before each new batch is planted. This and careful attention to watering, rich feeding and dry foliage stops many troubles from starting.
Scatterbrained watering can cause numerous problems. Small fruit or fruit that drops is the plants response to inadequate water. Irregular watering can produce split tomatoes and leaf curl. In hot weather, watering should be done at least once daily.
More people are growing tomatoes in containers these days. One of the best locations for them is against a south or west wall where they can benefit from reflected heat. The roof overhang will protect to some degree against rain.
Since containers dry out fast, you may have to water twice in hot summer days. Some people grow tomatoes in hanging baskets. Tumbler, with its long, dangling branches is good for this.
Big containers produce bigger crops, but some dwarf cherry tomatoes are bred especially for small containers.
The Tiny Tim bush tomato grows about 30 centimetres and the miniscule Micro Tom grows about eight inches tall. Micro Tom is said to produce fruit even in a 10-cm pot.
Grown in a garden bed, tomatoes are a gamble, which can pay off big-time under a plastic hoop house or even uncovered, provided we have an unusually dry, hot summer. In a wet summer, an uncovered crop will be lost to blight.
But blight-resistant tomatoes are becoming easier to find. Defiant is large-fruited, Mountain Magic is a large cherry type and both produced many tomatoes for me in the long, hot summer last year. I dont yet know how they would do in a cold, wet summer. Legend has also produced well for me.
It is a good idea to avoid planting tomatoes anywhere potatoes have been grown within the last few years. If you cant avoid this situation, mulching can stop watering from splashing blight spores up into tomato foliage. If your mulch is plastic, youll need to run a soaker hose underneath it.
Bush tomatoes (determinate types) seldom need to be pruned because they produce short branches with the fruit truss only at the tip. But indeterminate (vine) tomatoes grow into huge bushes unless you prune out most of the suckers that sprout from leaf axils. The first three or four suckers can be kept because they may have time to produce fruit. The later ones wont.
Anne Marrison is happy to answer garden questions. Send them to [email protected].
