Pinching and Potting

[Lesley Jay]

We feed ours once a week and they get watered every other day. Unless it is a heat wave and then it is every day.

[SueA]

I was told by my late father-in-law to feed them once a week after the first fruits have set otherwise you end up with loads of luscious leaves & not many toms.

[andrewo]

I was also told not to water them by one gardener who was from Greece, he said to give them a little or they just taste of water.

[nick the grief]

Thats why supermarket toms taste of nothing Andrew, they are grown Hyrdoponically in Spain & pumped full of chemicals. They have quite a problem out there with water pollution from the chemicals & pesticides.

[shine388]

thank you for the picture of the side shoots! ive been wondering about that for a while

[Little Dig]

I have heard that burying a banana skin below the tomato plant helps with the supply of potassium. Seems logical, but has anyone tried it?

[spacemagnet]

I've got mine in grow bags and depending on how hot it's been i usually give them a little water every other day and feed them once a week.
And Wizer your pots look great. I've turned into a paper folding freak! I'm up to 75 at the mo. Once you get the hang of it it's easy.

[sewer rat]

Little Dig
I read in this months GYO a letter from a tom grower in USA that he does this, or a spoonful of epsom salts as an alternative. I haven't done this with toms but have heard of it being done with roses

[eskymo]

If you leave the side shoots until they're about an inch long and pinch them out, you can then pop them into water until roots appear and pot these on to make more tomato plants.

I've used banana peel in the past but didn't have a 'control' without banana skins and so not sure if it's because of the banana peel that I had a really good crop or if it was just normal.

Also I've heard that epsom salts are used when your tomato plants are suffering from magnesium deficiency [when all the leaves start turning yellow from the bottom up] - like when your neighbour thinks he's helping out and waters your potted tomatoes after you've already watered them and washes all the nutrients out of their soil - this happens to me a lot as I have a very interfering neighbour. He's also very competitve and so he might have been trying to sabotage my tomatoes anyway.

[Gary Livingstone]

can anybody give some advice i started some tomatos off in the kitchen until i was able to get my Greenhouse built whilst the were on the kitcheb window sill the must have put on at least one foot of groth i got the green house built and put the toms out the started to flower i removed the flowers now the leaves near the bottom are starting to turn brown will the be ok or have i spoilt them this is the first time i have grown then

thanks for reading my post and many more thanks for any help

[bramble]

Hi Gary, I,d say the light on the window sill might not have been good enough and so the plants grew a bit leggy. (rather tall and gangly ) As regards the leaves going brown, its hard to say But am wondering, why you removed the flowers as this is the start of the tomato formation. Hope this might help.

[Sug]

Hi Gary
As your plants are leggy, you could plant them deeper in the soil as tomatos will root from the stem. It is probably the first seed leaves which are going brown. I would continue growing them and see what happens - but please don't take any more flowers off!

[Gary Livingstone]

sorry for not geting back sooner but have had a little problem with SLUGS think this has been the a cause of the browning of leaves have been going out each morning snd getting some slugs

[WiZeR]

sorry to bring this up again but I want to be absolutely sure. This is a Gardener's Delight:



Am I right to pinch out the circled new shoots?

[leona]

wizer, if you find yourself in surrey please do let me know. if you want any more tom plants i am completely overrun! they arent outdoor ones though unfortunately but i literally cannot move in the greenhouse for tomato plants.