![]() ![]() Just keeping them on our porch probably won't be enough. I have some ideas about how I'm going to get enough sun once the plants have gotten to a certain size. That could point to several things: a paucity of sun, too much nitrogen and not enough phosphorous (nitrogen stimulates leaf growth, which can actually inhibit fruiting), or even lack of pollinators. ![]() People I've talked to here say their plants grow great and get leafy, but rarely produce any fruit. This is problematic on cloudy Pohnpei, where stats show that we get an average of three cloudless days a year. Tomatoes need maximum sun and lots of heat to produce fruit, otherwise they will just stay the way they are or, at the very most, put out more leaves. All content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled advertisement feature. The Live Better Challenge is funded by Unilever its focus is sustainable living. Interested in finding out more about how you can live better ? Take a look at this month's Live Better Challenge here. You can get many more tips on how to grow tomatoes successfully in the Vertical Veg Club this month. But that also serves to make them that much more special when your crop is ready again the next July. You might feel a sense of mourning that it will be eight months before you bite into another tomato which really tastes like a tomato should. Is there a downside to growing tomatoes? Apart from the risk of blight, the biggest one is picking your last tomatoes at the end of the season. They love the extra nutrients and soil life this adds. I also add a 1in (2.5cm) layer of worm compost or manure (from the local city farm) to the top of my tomato containers about half way through the season. But if you really want to push the boat out, check out Sea Nymph’s natural seaweed based feed, or BioBizz’s, BioGrow, which has added molasses to feed the microbes in your soil. Any tomato feed from a garden centre will do the job. At the minimum you need a good liquid tomato feed, high in potassium (K). If you have a wormery, mix in 10–15% worm compost to add nutrients and soil life.įeeding tomatoes regularly is critical for a good yield. Tomatoes are best grown in a good quality multipurpose or potting compost. Fill this up each morning and the water will gently drip into the basket during the day. Add an upturned plastic bottle, with a hole drilled in the lid and the bottom cut off. Choose the largest basket you can find, add 15% perlite or biochar to the soil to improve water retention, line the inside of the basket with plastic with holes for drainage, and cover the top with plastic to reduce evaporation. If you decide to grow tomatoes in a hanging basket, the challenge is watering. Photograph: Mark Ridsdill Smith Photograph: Mark Ridsdill Smith It makes watering easier and you’ll get higher yields. A container with a water reservoir is a good investment for tomatoes. ![]() To help satiate the tomato’s desire for food and water, it’s best to grow all but the smallest varieties in decent sized pots – 10 litres or more. Grow all four and you’ll have an amazing mix of yellow, red and black tomatoes that will look beautiful together in any bowl. Top cherry vining tomatoes varieties for pots include Black Cherry, Gardeners Delight, Sungold, and Blondkopfchen. You’ll need to pinch out the side shoots of vining tomatoes as they grow (if you’ve not done this before, a "how to" video on YouTube can be instructive). Secure the string to a hook about two metres above the tomato, and wind the string round the tomato as it grows. Support them well, using a cane, a tomato cage, or my favourite solution: string. Vining tomatoes make good use of vertical space by going up. My favourite bush variety for hanging baskets is the aptly named “cherry cascade”. Dwarf bush varieties are my choice for hanging baskets or smaller containers. You can then choose between bush or vining varieties. Also look out for "early ripening" varieties, as these are more likely to be productive in a poor summer, and to fruit before the arrival of the dreaded blight (a nasty fungal infection that decimates tomatoes). What variety? If you’re growing outdoors in the UK, you’ll get a better harvest in most summers from a cherry variety than a large beefsteak tomato. You might, at a push, get a reasonable yield from a small cherry tomato in just five or six hours sun, but less than that and it gets more unlikely that you’ll see the fruits turn from promising green to luscious, juicy red. You really need at least six hours sun a day for most tomatoes to do well. Photograph: Mark Ridsdill Smith Photograph: Mark Ridsdill SmithĪs many small urban spaces are often overshadowed by surrounding buildings, the first thing you need to check is that you have enough sun. ![]() ![]()
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