[colin79ie]

Hi,

This is my first year of growing in the garden. I have decided to grow tomatoes and I now have two or three good plants in small pots on the windowsill and in my small 4 tier greenhouse. (the small one with the plastic cover, about 6 feet high.)

I am wondering if this is suitable for growing perhaps 2 plants. The plants are currently about 6 inches tall and have 4 leaves growing well.

I have seen photos of other tomato plants on here and they look far too big for my modest little greenhouse. Is there a way of getting them just big enough and then stopping them growing any further?

How big should I go with the size of pot for the final planting?

Any advice or tips is much appreciated.

[Liparis]

You can grow the tomatoes to whatever hieght you want, take out the growing point after about four trusses, three if you want slightly larger, five if you want smaller, but the fifth might not ripen on the plant, probably go in the chutney. Unless you are growing bush tomatoes, take out the side shoots as they develop, you will be surprised at how many they put out, even in the leaf axles where you've already removed them.
Tomatoes are greedy plants, so give them a biggish pot, or put the two plants into a growbag. They needs lots of food and don't like to dry out. Make your own liquid fertiliser as bought stuff could work out expensive. I can't give you exact measurements, but what I do is get a 45 gallon barrel and fill it with water, get two or three shovelfuls of farmyard manure and put it in a sack. let the sack soak in there for a few weeks, giving it a poke and a prod now and then. When you need liquid manure just take out what you want, for my tomatoes it gets poured on fortnightly as is, same for marrows, cucumbers etc. for ornamentals I dilute it until it looks like weak tea. Remove the sack and spent manure when it's done and compost it.
You can of course use nettles to make fertiliser, but I use good old cow s***
Bill.

[Organicgrowingpains]

That is a good idea for tomato food especially trying to be organic. When do you start feeding tomato plants

[blownin]

wot is the best suited variety of tomatoes to grow outside in S/W ireland ?

[James Kilkelly, was GPI.]

You won't go far wrong with the variety "Gardeners delight"

[Tobar]

I planted out my 'Gardener's Delight tomatoes last weekend, and I'm concerned that the last few night's cold weather will send them to an early grave.

Can anybody advise how hardy this strain is?


Also, I'm trying to grow them 'upside down' this year. Has anybody tried this before, and had any luck?

[King Carrot]

Unless you want to spray tomatoes against blight (which I don't) try Ferline which is supposed to be blight resistant . There may even be a few more varieties that are blight resistant now - I'm not up to date on that. Otherwise try to keep keep the rain off them with some sort of cover as that's usually how they get blight, especially with the weather we've had the last two years.

Tobar, I reckon it's a bit early to plant toms outside - I heard it's going to get very cold again this weekend so try and wrap them up somehow. I'll be putting my first ones outside in a coldframe at the start of April, and even then they could suffer if we get a cold spell - I've got more on the way so no loss!

[Liparis]

Far too early to be putting out any tender plants, especially Tomato. King Carrot is probably on the right track, cold-frame in April then hardn off and in the garden May. If you don't do something to protect them they will be lost.
Bill.