Tomato flowers.

[allyby]

Please help a newbie, is it time to start feeding now?

[Scarlet]

Yes, go for it

[craftymarie]

Oh yes, time to start feeding tomatoes when they get yellow flowers. Looking good

[Ryez]

Yes, I feed mine with organic tomato fertilizer every 10 days. You might want to be more careful with chemical fertilizers as they are much stronger than organic. Organic tomato fertilizer it's much safer for newbies as this way we cant over-fertilize the plants as easily.

[allyby]

Yes, I feed mine with organic tomato fertilizer every 10 days. You might want to be more careful with chemical fertilizers as they are much stronger than organic. Organic tomato fertilizer it's much safer for newbies as this way we cant over-fertilize the plants as easily.

What brand would you recommend?

[MarkPelican]

The recommendation on commercial fertilisers is when the first truss has set (little green tomatoes) rather than when they are just flowering. I always thought that fertilising them before they set encouraged the plant to drop the flowers (but I could be making it up). Anyway - I don't feed mine until there are set fruit visible.

[Ryez]

MarkPelican seems to right, the advice is to fertilize when the first fruit appears, not when the flowers appear. Opsy! So I would wait a bit... Maybe someone else can clarify? I did gave them some as I pinched many of the tomato side-shoots and wanted to make them happy and heal fast!

The one I use is Neudorff, it is fairly inexpensive and available in most places. And you can use it for many other plants.



Another thing is if you are growing them inside it will help if you hand-pollinate them, it seems to be very easy, I will attempt it today, use a vibrating toothbrush or something that gently vibrates, and watch a video to see how it is done before doing it. It seems straight forward. Tomatoes are self-pollinating either by the wind or bees, but when growing indoors, there isn't much of either so it helps to hand-pollinate.

Your tomatoes' flowers look very nice, have fun!

[Potstubsdustbins]

I have always started to feed high potash when the first truss of fruit has set.

If you are growing in pots don't worry about over feeding, it won't happen as you dilute the feed every time you water.

If they are cordon toms pollinating is easy just tap the top of the cane when you walk by, the vibrations will do the job for you.

[allyby]

Cordon Toms? don't know what that is but the three types I'm growing are.

Sungold.
Shirley.
And Sweet Millions.

[Bal]

Sungold and Shirley are cordon types. You pinch out the armpits as they appear. Sweet millions don't need pinching out. They are not cordons. The arm pits is a vine word for the shoots that appear between the leaves and the main stem .

[Potstubsdustbins]

If you have a sweet tooth your going to love Sungold my favourite tom. Don't rush them just make sure they are fully ripe, they go a deep orange

[MarkPelican]

Snuggled & Shirley are Indeterminate which means that they grow like a vine with no limit as to how big they can grow. The get shoots off the main stem and fruit comes as trusses off the stems and sideshoots. Although tomatoes are perennials, in the UK we amateurs grow them as a cordon which is one (or two or three) main stems and limit the number of sideshoots so that the fruit which has set stands a chance of ripening in our short season.

Sweet Millions are Determinate which means that they do not keep on growing indefinitely and the fruit tends to ripen all at the same time.

If you look how the professionals grow them in the big greenhouses, they have a single plant and lay it down then train the sideshoots vertically and treat those as a cordon.

Commercial outdoor canning tomatoes tend to be Determinate varieties grown as a bush which are then harvested all at the same time.

[MarkPelican]

Snuggled

?? My spelling checker struck again its sungold of course