How to grow tomatoes
Growing tomatoes under glass is especially rewarding because there are so many interesting varieties to try. Bog-standard red tomatoes are still the most commonly grown commercial variety, but more adventurous gardeners can try yellow, orange, pink, brown and purple varieties in a variety of shapes and sizes – though it’s taste, of course, that drives your choice, over looks.
Cordon varieties such as ‘Conchita’ and ‘Elegans’ are trained up a wire attached to a hook in the ceiling, while smaller tomatoes such as the prolific ‘Ildi’, with its clusters of pear-shaped yellow fruits, are grown in pots. Reaching several meters in height in one season, cordon tomatoes (or indeterminates) are designed to grow as a single main stem, with all side branches sprouting out. Once the plant has produced four or five trusses FlowersThey should be ‘stopped’ by pinching the growing tip so that the plant puts all its energy into producing more fruit. Bush, semi-bush and dwarf tomatoes don’t need their side branches out and require less support.
If you’re wondering how to grow tomatoes outdoors, your choices will be more limited, but there are some outdoor tomatoes that produce reliably good results. Of the Cordon types, ‘Black Cherry’, ‘Gardner’s Delight’ and Sweet Cherry Tomato ‘Sungold’ are small and smooth, ripening quickly, while Russia’s ‘Black Cream’ has large, beefy fruits with dark skin. Cordon is best grown in a grow-bag or large pot or bed next to a warm wall, and needs to be tied to tall canes or stakes. Bush or semi-shrub types are more suitable for vegetable plots because they do not need to be staked out as they grow, and small plants do not need to be staked or supported.
Andrew Montgomery
Both ‘Red Alert’ and ‘The Amateur’ are small trees that mature early and usually produce reliable crops if the weather is favorable. Large plants such as ‘Legend’, a beefsteak tomato that has been specifically bred for outdoor growing with good frost resistance, may need some support to keep the fruit from falling back to the ground and rotting. Unfortunately the inevitable bane of outdoor tomatoes is blight, a wind-borne fungal disease that is likely to affect plants in late summer, especially if the weather is wet and gray. It cannot be prevented but can be prevented by applying a fungal spray early in the season, however if you want to grow your vegetables organically, the only option is to choose an early maturing, fungus-resistant variety and plant in the most sheltered location.
Tomatoes are easy and rewarding to grow from seed and should be started indoors in seed trays on a warm windowsill, where they will germinate readily at 18-20°C. They grow quickly, and once they have two or three leaves the seedlings can be cut into individual 7cm pots and left to grow in a warm place. As they grow, they can be potted up into larger pots for the greenhouse, or hardened off and planted outside once the threat of frost is well and truly past.
