Allotments 4 All

Why do my tomatoes, in the greenhouse, grow like the clappers but do not produce flowers until high up on the plant.  Even my Sungold is to the roof before the 4th truss.  I grow in bottomless pots in a mix of compost, peat and perlite and wonder if I am providing too much nitrogren and if so, how do I prevent this.  Also my preferred toms tend to be the open pollinated (heritage?) ones so would that affect them?  One further question any recommendations for outdoor tomatoes please.

Mine used to do that so I started not planting them in multi purpose compost - either mixing it down with my home made stuff or with spent compost/soil from last years spuds in pots.  Last year was much better - plants not quite so big and more fruit per foot.

What compost are you using? I think there was a suggestion on here a while back to use grow bag compost and/or high potash ferts.  Certainly if you take my approach you need to get some proper tomato feed in quite quick...

You should never feed until the first truss is set, if they grow a lot of foliage it  takes all the good ness. I like to starve the plants in pots before planting.

Thank you for the replies.  Looks like I'll save a bit of money not buying MPC.

I find that if I sow too early I sometimes get this situation I put it down to lack of light after germination.

When I sow later the daylight  hours per day is much longer meaning my plants are not stretching for the light as much, so they do not go leggy, i.e. they are short bushy plants and this bushyness seems to continue as the plant/s mature.

i find if you plant them deep when you put them into their final spot  this really helps getting the first truss close to the ground seems to work for me