Allotments 4 All

Hiya,
Really like the site and the info found here...my first question....

Last year I only grew 3 bush tom plants so I kind of just left them to it and they sprawled everywhere. I put some straw around them to try help keep the fruits clean and to avoid standing on them. Then at the end of the season these were the first to get blight and it then spread it to all my others. All my tom's are outside by the way.

So for this year, (especially as I've 40ish bush tom's) how can I keep the fruits clean and not sprawling everywhere so I don't stand on them?
Searching the forum I saw one suggestion of 6 poles round and string but with a lot of plants is there an easier/ cheaper way?
Is straw ok or did it bring in the blight (or encourage it)?
And do you plant different varieties next to each other or does there have to be a certain distance?
Oh, and last tom question, as potatoes and tomatoes can both suffer from blight is it foolish to put my row of tom's next to my pot's?

Thanks for your help,

Karen

I have been rather complicated with my bush toms in the past and I am sure someone has a better way, but I put a long cane in in the middle as close to the plant as possible and tie the main stem to is, then I do like a maypole affair where I tie string to the top of the bamboo and bring them down and tie the heavy trusses to is.  So, the strings go outwards at angles from the top of the bamboo.  Ends up a real mass of outward facing strings.  However, I also thin them out removing lots of leaves to make them less floppy. 

As for the straw, I don't know if you bought the blight in with you, but you would have created a humid atmosphere so blight spores would have multiplied and drifted slowely from plant to plant.

Not a 'bush' expert, but I do as Emma - single cane - 'maypole' if needed.

You could use weed control fabric if really worried?

Last question - yes, keep them as far apart as possible.

PS - nice here, isn't it!

I let mine sprawl last year, and ended up with a tomato jungle, and blight. This year I'm going to start with one bamboo per plant, and elaborate as needed.

Are they Plum types? most Bush Toms are bred for countries where blight is not common and so have less resisitance, you need warm and wet for blight to spread, not normal conditions round the Med!
;D

What I grew last year was anonymous plants from the market; it was the first time I'd tried them. This year I'm growing a string of different varieties to see which do well. I don't even know whether they were bush or cordon since no sooner had I planted them out than I came down with some horrible chest infection, and I was incapacitated for ages. All I can say is that they sprawled everywhere, produced a load of rather uninspired fruit, then got blight. This time I'm doing things properly.

Thanks everyone for the replies so far.

Emma Jane if you had a photo you could post I'd be very grateful. Sounds a good idea. I guess like Robert I'll put up a bamboo and go from there. It's still a lot of bamboo's. What do you think of two rows of strings to run each side of the plants and 'hang' the branches over? As I can do long rows it could minimise my cane needs. Answering my own question this really only works when they have fully grown...

Why did I ask about pot's and tom's rows together after I'd dug the nice tom planting holes next to the pot's!?  How far apart do you think they need to be? With the rotation and avoiding the blight areas from last year I've kind of got pot's all over!

They weren't plum's, nor are this years. I'm in north west France so yes it was warm but not esp damp - perhaps with my watering coupled and the straw I created the nice damp environment.

Thanks

Talking of planting companions for tomatoes - I have just put two tom plants in half up-ended growbags in the garden along with two aubergine plants in growbags.  Should I keep the tomatoes and aubergines near to each other or will this encourage blight?

It does mean that if one gets it the other will (I think they're the same family?), but it shouldn't make them more likely to get it. I just planted out the first dozen toms yeaterday, under cloches, but the aubs are ony two or three inches high still, despite having been planted at the same time. Same goes for the peppers.

Hi Ksia,

last year I had all my tomato plants in a long row between two strong posts and then I strung a single wire between the posts and dangled wires/strings (adding more as the branches grew and the tresses got heavier) to support the branches and to 'dress' the branches away from each other to keep them well spaced so they didn't shade each other too much. I also put a strong bamboo in three of the pots to which I fixed the main supporting wire, so that it didn't sag down as the load grew.

This seemed to work well and was able to 'grow' with the plants, and I was able to add a few plants in the gaps between the big pots and string them up too. I had a wall of tomatoes in the end...

Good luck!

Dan.

Do you plant outside bush tomatoes 'deep' like you do for vine tomatoes? Or do they go in at seed leaf level?

I haven't grown bush tomatoes before; they're currently quite sturdy, about 10" tall, in 6" pots, and I think the first truss is starting to form on one of them. Nothing on the others. It'll be another 2 weeks before they can be relatively safe from cold snaps.

The stem will develop roots, so plant them deep.