If you are in a cool climate, Then you need a greenhouse to ensure a good crop of tomatoes. It is really quite easy to grow tomatoes in your greenhouse. You can either raise your own plants from seed, or buy young plants from a garden centre.
If you are growing them from seed, then you need to sow the seed early, probably before the last frosts are over and the best way to do this is to sow them indoors. I usually sow in 3″ pots – 3 seeds to a pot and place on a well lit and warm windowsill.
Keep your pots regularly watered. Once the plants begin to show, and when there is no risk of frost, you should move them to the greenhouse. Grow them on until the plants are well established in the pots, but before the roots begin to circle in the pot. The soil should be retained by the roots and a god network of root show. Do not leave too long, they will become root-bound and it will be difficult to persuade the plants to let the roots grow further into a new pot. You should then separate the three plants and re-pot each one into a 5″ pot. Grow on like this until they are ready to be potted on again. At this point, you need to make a decision on where you are going to grow them. You coul plant three tomatoes to a growbag. I nowadays grow them with a much deeper root run that they get in a growbag. One successful technique is to cut a growbag in half and stand each half on end, with one plant in each. This will give you a much deeper root run. You can also grow tomatoes in litre pots in any god soil or compost or in the ground should be so wish.
Give consideration to how you are going to support your tomatoes as they grow. They will want good support up to the roof of your greenhouse. I usually put a bamboo cane into each pot as I plant, and then tie it to the greenhouse roof.The plants will become very heavy when laded with fruit so canes will need to be supported from the roof of the greenhouse
Tie the plants to the canes as they grow. The sideshoots that grow from the leaf joints should be regularly removed while they are still small. Water regularly and watch them grow and develop fruit. Don’t let them dry out, and keep the watering consistent. Uneven watering can cause greenback – which makes the fruit go black at the bottom and makes them inedible. If this happens, pick the infected fruit off and make sure the plant it watered correctly. They should recover. Tomatoes need about 1 litre (2 pts) of water a day, although cherry tomatoes such as gardeners delight only need 1.5 litres (3 pts) of water a week.This makes the fruit taste sweeter.
It is advisable to maintain humid conditions when the flowers appear by spraying the plants daily. You should also gently shake the plant to move the pollen about. After the first truss of fruit has set, you can take off the leaves below it. This increases the air flow and also the rise of the sap. At this point start feeding with liquid seaweed. (Tomato feed purchased from garden centre is equally good.). Some people also feed epsom salts because they say that it makes the tomatoes ripen earlier.This has not been proven, and is in any case unnecessary in a diy cool greenhouse.
Pick the fruit regularly, Fresh young fruits are always the sweetest and picking encourage the production of more fruit.
Tomatoes are easy to grow in the greenhouse and are very rewarding, reliably giving a heavier crop of ripe clean and healthy tomatoes than you could grow outside.
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