GYO Wants Your Advice On Growing Tomatoes

[Geordie]

Here are the tips I use to help you get ahead.

Start seed. Start tomato seeds indoors seven to eight weeks before planting time. Standard potting mix is too heavy; use soil mix that has peat moss and vermiculite instead.
Think about using grow lights directly above seedbeds instead of natural light, as this will help keep stems straight. Harden off seedlings for a week or so before transplanting to the ground for stronger, healthier stems.
You should try and put the trays somewhere with a little wind, as wind will strengthen the plants.
Don't plant too soon. Tomatoes need a consistent soil temperature of 55°F or higher for healthy transplants. If night time temperatures fall below 55°F, tomato blooms are likely to fall off and pollen can be killed completely.
You might not see the effects of planting too early until vines start bearing fruit. Catfacing—the streaky, brownish scar tissue often mistaken for disease—is believed to be caused by cool weather early in the growing season.
Use trench planting.
Transplant when stems are about a foot tall. Pull the leaves off the bottom 8 inches or so of the plant, leaving the top two or three groups of leaves. Lay the plant down horizontally in the row and cover the bottom 8 inches with dirt.
Carefully turn the top of the plant upward until it's pointing straight out of the ground, and mound a little dirt around it. Leaving that much stem underground develops a strong root system.
Don't fertilize too much. New determinate varieties need less fertilizer. in fact, they need only about 3/4 as much fertilizer as traditional indeterminate varieties. Too much fertilizer can lead to excessive foliage, which makes the plants more susceptible to leaf blight diseases.
If you use a fertilizer, choose one with a higher phosphorous and potash content than its nitrogen content. Too much nitrogen will lead to beautiful foliage but not much fruit.
A good guideline is to choose fertilizers with a low first number and higher middle and end numbers, such as 6-12-12.
I mix a small amount of bonemeal and fertilizer in the planting hole when I set my plants out, then sidedress plants when they begin to fruit and again about a month later.
Beat disease. Several seed companies offer varieties that are resistant to disease. But tomato lovers know what they're looking for in taste, and often only their favorite varieties measure up. Still, there are other ways to beat disease....google it (ask LJ!)
Watch the water. Tomato experts say watering needs to be consistent above all else. Tomatoes need at least 1 inch of water a week, and it's best to water right at soil level. Wet foliage is more apt to develop disease.
If plants look wilted on a hot summer afternoon, that's normal. But if they're still wilted the next morning, water thoroughly.
Tie them up. The key is to keep the fruit off the ground. For determinate varieties—tomatoes that develop a bushy plant—a secured wire cage is fine.
The indeterminate, viny varieties require more control. A good system if you have lots of plants is:
Instead of staking every plant, drive a stake between every two plants, with a large stake at each end of the row. Tie string 10 inches above the ground on the end stake, then loop it around each stake down the row and tie again at the other end. Bring the string down the other side of the stakes in the row and tie on the end where you started. Guide plants between the two strings. As plants grow, add rows of string at 10-inch intervals.

Mulch. Mulche with several layers of newspaper or seaweed if you live near the coast. Mulching keeps plants evenly moist and prevents backsplash from the soil, which can encourage foliage disease. You can use straw, grass clippings, landscape fabric, compost or any combination of these to mulch plants.
Save seeds and cuttings. Saving seeds from traditional and heirloom varieties is easy. Scoop the seeds out of the fruit and dry on a paper towel. Once dry, just roll up the towel and freeze or refrigerate over the winter.
If I have a hybrid that produces good fruit cut the new growth (at the end of the growing season) and put them into water until they put out roots. Then I put them into pots with good soil. Of course, you need a heated greenhouse or a good place to keep them."
Don't wait until they're ripe. If you're craving the perfect plate of fried green tomatoes, take some advice from Robert Lorino of The Irondale Cafe in Irondale, Ala. (That's the restaurant on which Fannie Flagg based her award-winning novel "Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe.") You want a hard, green tomato that has not yet begun to turn, in other words, you need to use it when it's dark green and hasn't begun to change to a whitish-green color yet.
Fried Green Tomatoes

2 medium green tomatoes, chilled
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1/8 teaspoon ground red pepper
11/2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
1/4 cup hot bacon drippings

Cut tomatoes into 1/2-inch slices.
Stir together mustard and next 5 ingredients. Spread on both sides of tomato slices. Coat with cornmeal.
Fry tomatoes in hot drippings in a skillet over medium heat 3 minutes on each side or until browned. Drain.

[SueA]

LJ, just tell GYO to print Geordie's instructions - they're all you'd ever need! I've never heard of the 'trenching method' but it sounds worth a try, might be a bit fiddly in my grow bag though!

[andrewo]

When working with limited space you want to go for a variety of tomatoes, I always go for a mixture of cookers and eaters. I also use pots with the bottoms cut off that can be put into beds or into growbags. This year I grew sungold (a good outdoor variety for the North and guaranteed to ripen early), tumbling toms are also a good idea for pots and hanging baskets. I grew harbinger in the ground (a good cooker), these grow huge, yellow monsters. I advise that you don't water too much, if you add enough humus and manure at the end of the season, and then mulch you won't need to water like crazy. Feed with torn comfrey for slow release and liquid comfrey for a quick blast to the plants.

How I start my plants is undercover on a windowsill, then I harden off the stronger ones, if they are a bit lanky - don't worry - just plant the stem in the final planting deeper. Prepare your beds/buckets by digging a hole, adding manure or chicken manure with torn comfrey leaves, then place a layer of compost over it. Plant in your tom and leave enough room to bury an empty pot beside for a water reservoir (they will love this and stops you splashing the plants with water). Then mulch to keep in the moisture, this can be with dried grass or straw, or a variety of other mulches, from compost to recycled rubber granules. When the first flowers set, feed with liquid comfrey and so on as the trusses set. Any yellowing leaves, take off, do not tear off, use a knife to avoid borotis or other fungal nasties getting in. Towards the end of the season, you want to remove all foliage to allow the sun to get into the fruit and ripen them.

[Earthbabe]

As a relative novice I don't have any tried and trusted methods or varieties. The only thing I can offer is my special green tomato chutney recipe which is very much tried and trusted.

[Protea]

I've grown Sungold for the last 2 years, they always produce masses of small golden fruits, just perfect for summer salads and they keep well for ages in the fridge (which is handy when i forget they've been pushed to the back!!)

I start them of in spring in a module tray, then transplant into 9cm pots when big enough to handle.

I've used grow bags in the past but find they dry out really quickly and are hard to get water into when the plants are big, so this year i transplanted the 9cm plants into large tomato pots (which were difficult to get hold of!), they had much more soil than if they were in a grow bag and also mixed in some water retaining gel to aid water retention.

I had a huge crop even with the soaring temperatures and having to rely on neighbours to water when i was away for 3 weeks in July
In fact i'm quite bad about watering and they don't get watered every day, but i still got a good crop.

I did get som split fruit (partly caused by my erratic watering) but i think this variety is also more prone to it, i had no blossom end rot though which was good.

Next year i'm thinking of planting them into even larger containers to help retain more water, and i'm going to try one of the beefsteak varieties as well as another cherry type.

[pigletwillie]

I start my tomatoes in 3 inch pots on a warm windowsill at the begining of February. When big enough they are pricked out into pots (15 to a tray) and are moved out into a heated greenhouse (heated to 15 degrees) with additional light if required. These plants are again potted on (12 to a tray) as required. They are planted out into my unheated polytunnel in April 2 deep with 2' between rows and plants. The plants are planted right up to their first pair of leaves to encourage further roots to form. They are trained up 8' canes that lean into the centre pathway so that all fruit hangs forward making them easy to see and therefore pick. All sideshoots are remove weekly to help keep the plant open and uncongested. The plants are stopped at the top of the canes. Once fruit has set I add tomato feed into my 1000 litre water buts and water this on the plants daily (it is however at a lower concentration then reccommended).

Additional plants are grown in my greenhouse at home and these are generally cherry tomatoes and salad ones. The ones in the tunnel also consist of some cherries and salad types but in the main are cookers like San Marzano. By starting so early I am usually picking by early july.

Do not be tempted to grow too many plants that end up all leggy and be ruthless in your quality control. Poor plants lead to poor crops.

[monica meeneghan]

Some favourite tomato varieties,outdoors are sungold, flavour & so resistant to blight, brandywine gardeners delight and black russian for flavour. I haven't tried it yet but thought next year I'd try the method I think I saw in GYO of growing in 2 bottomless pots placed on growbag with plastic slits for pots at appropriate places. I'll place the growbag in our cold frame.

[filthyrich]

great lot of tips, my one given to me by my uncle is every time you walk past new plants in greenhouse or tunnel brush your hands thro the tops ,this mimics the wind and makes the plants stronger ,they are then more resistant to disease.