Tomatoes - where best to plant?

[TracyP]

Hi all
I had success with Gardeners Delight last year, grown in grow bags in my greenhouse. This year I am trying 4 varieties plus some from hanging baskets

I am wondering the following -
- is a grow bag the best idea with three per bag, or individually in pots. I found the bags a bit cumbersome as I have a small greenhouse and the were difficult to move. As I am growing much more this year, I am wondering where I will get the floor space for all these growbags, but might be ok on a small table in pots perhaps?

- If I use growbags, can I combine varieties in one bag? Is this a good idea?

- Do toms grow ok in cooold Glasgow? Should I try planting some outside too?

Many thanks for any advice
Tracy

[sez]

i don't personally like growbags - i find they don't have enough compost in, and they harbour slugs and whatnot like nothing else. much prefer pots plus it means the plants can be moved if need be.

[Mike and Louise]

Yep we use pots too.
Much better than grow bags we think.

[zazen999]

I buy growbags, and use the innerds to beef up my compost; my toms that are currently growing with this mix - they were the size of 5p's yesterday and today are the size of 50p's; so it can't be all bad!

[JO,JO]

i grew gardeners delight last year in my flower borders and they did not get any diseases.i live in east yorkshire,i planted them out in middle may.

[moggssue]

Last year was my first year growing toms so I have no previous experience to compare success or otherwise with, but for what its worth here's what I did - I put them in pots with the bottoms cut out, filled with growbag compost, and then stood inside another growbag (because I couldnt put them in the ground). This seemed to work really well, got lots of lovely healthy plants, lots of lovely healthy flowers and the startings of lovely healthy baby tomatoes - then blight struck and I lost the lot!!

But putting pots with no bottoms into growbags did seem to work well for me. I think this year, now I have a lottie, I shall use big pots filled with growbag compost again but then stand them in the ground rather than in a growbag (in theory so that I can feed them easily, but the roots have plenty of room to run around and not need so much watering by me) - report back later in the year if anyone is interested!

Good luck with yours TracyP.

[Iaind4]

Yip definatly pots , I put one tom per 12" pot they do well in these

[greenstar]

Hi TracyP

I'm trying pots this year for the first time having grown good, but not great, indoor tomatoes for the last couple of years in grow bags - three plants per bag. I know some of the old hands at our lottie use grow bags cut in half and stood on their ends (with a wee dip in the soil in the green house to stop them falling over) but grow bags are not cheap to buy, and you can probably get a better deal on multi buy bags of compost - I got 3 x 100 litre bags for a tenner. For pots I'm using the black buckets you get holding flowers in supermarkets/florists - most shops give them away free, but I (stupidly) paid for mine - 99p for 6 in Morrisons. You just need to put a few holes in the bottom for drainage. They aren't the most stable pots in the world, but they should last a year at least and then they go in the recycling.

You can also use these buckets for ring culture as described by Moggssue above. I had intended to try that this year, but in the haste to pot up some tomatoes I forgot. Doh!

[TracyP]

Thanks, great advice as ever! I think I will try the pots this year then. I love the suggestions of cutting the grow bag in half and pots in the growbags - willl give that a go too.

Greenstar, I'm in the southside of Glasgow too and trying to start a grow your own group, if you're interested..

Tracy

[Digger Don]

Hi Tracy P, I generally have no trouble growing toms in my greenhouse here in Lanarkshire but I've yet to get any success outside.
It seems that any tom rated as outdoors in the South of England e.g. Gardeners Delight, does well in a greenhouse here but its a different story with Italian toms - Gardeners World and others rave about Costoluto Fiorentinos but we and some neighbours have found them quite tasteless - can only assume not enough hot sunshine.

[greenstar]

Hi TracyP - whereabouts in the south side are you? We have an allotment in Pollokshields. Digger Don - we too have not had much success with growing outside. I've got some Eastern European varieties to try this year and although most of them will stay inside, I've got loads of them so I'll stick a few outdoors as well to see how they get on.