stunted tomatoes in the bed inside green house. Pots doing fine?

[Bill HH]

It can be confusing as to what is a side shoot and what is a new truss. But once you understand it it is easy. A side shoot comes from where a new leaf is growing out of the main stem, think of it as growing out of an "arm pit" A new truss come out directly from the main stem with no leaf branch involved. If you dont remove the side shoots you will end up with an unmanageble mess.

[Superh]

Follow up thread - tomatoes still stunted

It's been about a month since my last post. I tried out the suggestions made and while they did grow a few cm each, overall they have barely changed.

last thread:
http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gra...ine_85758.html

Very disappointing . I have a feeling that the soil is the problem. I put the potted tomatoes close to the beds to test it and they potted ones still grew a lot more!

I have had toms in these beds for around 4 years back to back. last year was still a decent crop(the year before even better) but this year not so much. Maybe the soil is depleted?

[Potstubsdustbins]

If you have grown in the same spot for 4 years or more without doing something to improve the soil I would say your guess is right.

[Shadylane]

Some people dig out the soil in the beds every few years and replace. At the very least you need to be adding some muck or compost in there.
ETA so I had a quick read of the previous thread and it seems you already did all that...hmmm. Have they got any fruit on yet?

[kathyd]

I've heard that if you grow your greenhouse toms in pots with the bottoms cut out and standing on the greenhouse beds, they grow much better than any other method.. never tried it myself, but might be worth a go for next year? Might deplete the soil in the beds less quickly? What do the 'experts' think..??

[Bigmallly]

I've heard that if you grow your greenhouse toms in pots with the bottoms cut out and standing on the greenhouse beds, they grow much better than any other method.

I think the plants are planted in the bed, a ring culture placed on top then filled with MPC, this encourages the Tomato plant to grow roots higher up the stem....................Of course I could be way off the mark.

[veggiechicken]

I've merged these threads to make it easier to follow.
I grow toms in open bottomed pots in the GH, resting on a shallow bed of old compost. The pots have new compost each year and at the end of the year, the compost is emptied out onto the bed.
You water the beds and feed the pots.