THERE'S A TOMATO FOR EVERYONE!The fifth and already last article in this blog series. It was very nice to show you how you too can get started, regardless of the space you have. Thank you in advance, Kelly, and I follow with great interest your own vegetable garden steps. We end in beauty, with a bit of a diva: the tomato. The first bite into a sun-ripened tomato, straight from the vine, is a revelation for many people and the beginning of a lifelong passion for growing your own vegetables. Whether you have a conservatory and want metre-high plants full of fruit, or you want to go for a balcony garden with hanging cherry tomatoes: there is a tomato for everyone! As always, you can get started with small plants, but with tomatoes I still recommend you try growing from seed. This way you can choose from infinitely more varieties, shapes, flavors and colors and you can already start sowing now, so you'll have a head start in the garden! You can already start sowing at the end of January, but it is certainly not too late. Now that the spring sun is really making itself felt, seedlings grow like cabbages...or in this case, tomatoes. Water your potting soil before sowing to prevent all the seeds from being washed away. Sowing is done in a regular potting soil. You can sow in pots, trays or do it yourself with toilet paper rolls or pots made from newspaper.
When your seeds have germinated and the first plants are sticking out above the potting soil, you can remove the cling film. Give your seedlings a place with plenty of light, warmth and sun. Tomatoes are real sun worshippers! Now it is especially important that each plant gets enough space: from the time your seedlings are 2 to 3 cm tall, give them their own, larger pot and if necessary, you can give the plant some support with a skewer. Now just keep repotting until they can go outside. When repotting, it is also useful to know that you can always stick the plant a little with the stem under the ground. This will give you a strong root structure that will give strong plants later on. Transplanting tomatoes is done at the end of May, in any case after the infamous Ice Saints. Choose a sunny, sheltered spot. Against a wall is ideal, because the plant will benefit from the residual heat when it cools down in the evening. About two weeks before planting out, you will have to 'harden off' the seedlings, i.e. get them used to outdoor life. You do this by placing them outside during the day, on nice days, but by taking them inside again during rain, cold and night. Growing tomatoes involves some important rules. This is no longer a vegetable that you can plant and just let do its thing (and therefore an ideal conclusion to this series). First and foremost, a tomato needs regular watering. Irregular watering can cause your fruit to crack and rip at the bottom. This is caused by a lack of calcium, which a tomato plant is going to get mostly from its water. This is one plant I would rather water with tap water than rain water. In any case, always water from below. A tomato does not like wet leaves. Tomatoes are very susceptible to fungal diseases (including the tomato plague, the nightmare of every hobby gardener) and wet leaves that cannot dry quickly enough are a shortcut to a dead plant. If you are going to grow the larger varieties outside, it is even advisable to provide them with a canopy and not plant the plants too close together. Make sure air can get between the leaves to help dry and ventilate.
Tomatoes are very hungry plants, so a weekly liquid tomato food is certainly not a luxury. You can certainly find some at your garden center, but as a general rule: high in nitrogen (the N on your package) and high in potassium (the K on your package). If all goes well, your tomato plant will now begin to form flowers. Now it's up to the wind and the pollinators in the garden to do their work and fertilize them, but you can also (literally) give them a hand by gently shaking the plant every now and then. This is called 'shaking' and professional growers use the craziest materials for this purpose: from electric toothbrushes to...other vibrating objects. So it's perfectly possible to do it by hand: gently tap/vibrate the plant for a few seconds; this way the pollen from the stamens ends up on the pistil. Now the moment has come: the fruits are finally forming on the plant. If they are a bit hidden under the foliage, feel free to remove some leaves so that the tomatoes can take full advantage of the sun. Leave them on the plant to ripen as long as possible, but if you have to, you can always leave them to ripen on a rack. Or you can make a green tomato ketchup of course. Sometimes it may be necessary to start supporting the branches and fruit. Especially with larger beef tomatoes, you run the risk that the weight will damage the branches. You can do this in many different ways, with material that you have available. Google around, I would say, and discover how multi-purpose a nylon stocking can be. Harvesting is done simply with scissors by cutting off the tomato, or the vine, from the plant. Pure summer in your mouth! Be sure to try... ...a large, heavy beef tomato, such as the coeur de boeuf ...or just delicious vine tomatoes, just in pots on the balcony, like Tiny Tim, Gardener's Delight or Black Cherry ...Sow basil around your tomato plants. Research has shown that both plants boost each other's health ...The yellow or red pear, with its unique shape. Ideal for brightening up salads and dishes. ...millefleur, a cherry tomato variety with a huge yield of up to a hundred tomatoes on a single vine. Did you like it? Please leave a 👍 below & follow my plant adventures on Instagram!
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AuthorCrazy plant lady who likes to inspire others! Everything I write here comes from my own experience, knowledge that I gained by reading books and on the internet. If I would literally copy someone's info, I would do my best to link it of course! Do you spot typos or do you have other concerns, let me know! Have fun reading! I've only just started writing English blogs since January 2021, that's why there are many Dutch blogs and not so many English ones.
I use DeepL to help me translate. ARCHIVES
Maart 2022
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