I have just learned of a way to produce a small but nice and early crop of tomatoes.
Apart from keeping the plants in plenty of warmth and light, what you do is 'stop' the plants after only one (or maybe 2) trusses instead of the usual 3 or 4. As all of us tomato growers know this action encourages fruit set, so doing it after one truss should mean fruits are produced far earlier. OK you arent going to get many fruits this way and after cropping the plant is finished, but if you have some plants spare it sounds like a great way to get at least a few really early homegrown tomatoes.
Of course Tomatoes are easy to propagate from cuttings so you can replace the plants by using what you remove to stop the main plant, as a cuting and make another plant (which will mature more quickly than a seed grown plant)
Now i must stress I havent actualy tried it yet (i only heard about it yesterday), but i will be trying it out if only to make use of some of the 'spare' plants i seem to have grown this year!
Feel free to make any coment/ opinion on this technique.
Interesting, but I'm happy to wait for the first tomatoes in their own time.
Yes, I will be very interested to know the outcome of this trial ...
Thank you for the idea GC, I was given 45 'Eye-talian Tomato' seedlings yesterday by friendly old boy, have just pricked them out and will give this a go. Nothing to lose! ;D
Well if it works you can thank Bob Flowerdew, not me. The idea comes from him. One of his less extreme ideas i think!
I think that sounds really interesting - I always sow soooooo (too) many toms and am always soooo impatient for them to grow so think I'll give that a go. I've got a few that I sowed in late Feb that are jus beginning to form flowers so maybe I'll try this with them.
My others ( about 60 ::) ;D) were sown late March so will have to do them in the normal way.
but if it's a suggestion from good old Bob, it must be OK ;D.
I've got a few strawberry plants in the green house following his tip and have lots of little green fruits already ;D so we'll be eating those in May methinks (yum)- I've done this before and it really does work.
Terri
Ive done this this year and found it has caused some not all of my toms to double truss. Ive also stopped some at two trusses.
I picked up the idea after reading Matt Simpsons tomato book, which i picked up at the show at West dean last year.
I would recommend the book to anyone serious about growing tomatoes, and would recommend Simpsons seeds as good reilable suppliers for vegetables too.
Happy growing
ric
My toms were sown on the 8th of april, so they are thus far a long way off trying the idea out on them. However since i have more than I need trying it out should still get me a nice early crop (but not quite as early as the end of May methinks ;D ;)).
I am also considering letting afew go to 2 trusses before stopping them. That way (hopefully) i should stagger the crop a bit.
wattapain: 60 plants! i thought i had a lot!
Ricado: I went to that show too. Good wasnt it? Didnt see the book you mentioned though.
Something has just occurred to me ... most of us have very limited greenhouse space, if any, whereas we have plenty of room for outdoor tomatoes. Would this technique of stopping bring on earlier fruit for outdoor varieties eg Gardeners Delight and so ensure reasonable crops (and beat the hated blight)? So although potential yields are being diminished, they are being traded for more reliability?
This is not the same thing, is it? http://www.bbc.co.uk/northyorkshire/uncovered/gardening/tomatoes.shtml
Oh, and did you see my recipe in the book, Ricado??
Here's a picture of it. You can't see the basil dressing!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v164/photo04/salad.jpg
beautiful dish there-and the food! :)
kitty
I've got a couple of Balconi Yellow on a windowsill just starting to flower, they don't get very big and they can stay there until finished.
Quote from: Garden Cadet on April 25, 2006, 10:18:56
wattapain: 60 plants! i thought i had a lot!
Well, I do sell quite a few for fetes and plant stalls @ my local hospital ( where I work ;D ) fundraising things .
But I just luuuuurve tomatoes and cook loads of pasta sauces etc which I freeze for the winter. ;D