Grow Your Own Tomatoes

Lesson 4: Caring for Young Tomato Plants

Training Programme
Tomatoes are ready for picking 16-20 weeks after sowing, depending on the variety grown and the environmental conditions. So you've got a while to go yet before you can enjoy your home-grown toms. Meanwhile, water the plants little and often and feed them with a potash-rich liquid tomato fertiliser every week. The other main focus at this stage in their development is to train the plants so that they produce the maximum amount of fruit. If you're growing a cordon variety, the way to do this is by limiting the number of "trusses" (flowering branches) that the plant is allowed to develop.

Pinching Out
Cordon varieties have a central stem that produces leaves and trusses. Once a truss has been established, monitor the plant for side-shoots emerging from joins between the leaves and the stem in that area. Pinch them out so that the plant concentrates on growing your chosen truss. As the plant grows, remember to tie it loosely to its supporting cane. Bush varieties don't need this intensive training. They should be sturdy enough to cope without support and there's no need to limit the amount of shoots that they develop.

Troubled Tomatoes
As the plants develop, lower leaves may begin to discolour or decay. Remove them promptly to avoid the spread of disease. Two of the most common tomato problems are fruit that split and blossom end rot. Split fruit are easy to recognise. Blossom end rot is distinguished by a dark, leathery patch on the bottom end of the fruit. Handily, they both have the same cause – an uneven watering regime. Don't allow the compost to dry out and then flood it with water. We've said it once already in this lesson but it's worth repeating: growing bags must be watered little and often if the weather is dry.

Pic: GAP Photos/Janet Johnson