Quadgrow System

• Keeps soil constantly moist – from smart reservoir below.
• Avoids over or under watering – plants absorb water as they need it.
• Avoids over or under feeding – nutrients are added to reservoir and nutrients are constantly available to plants.
• Ideal for holiday breaks – the 30 litre reservoir can be extended by a holiday watering kit.

Ordinary Pots and Grow Bags

• Plants need to be watered every day – more in hot weather.
• When soil is dry, a good watering can cause tomato split.
• Soil that is under or over watered can cause nutrient deficiency including Blossom End Rot.
• Soil that is too wet can cause poor root development and eventually fungal disease spreading from the lower leaves.

The Quadgrow eliminates some of the biggest problems when growing fruit and vegetables and has many of the same benefits that professional growers enjoy when growing tomatoes – namely, a regular supply of water and nutrients that are accessed by plants as they require them.

This produces healthier and quicker growing tomato plants and therefore, a harvest of quality tomatoes earlier in the season compared to conventional pots and grow bags.

The system is easy to set up with plenty of guidance on how to mix and apply the nutrients that are included with the quadgrow.

The reservoir, feeder tray and pots are all strongly made and should last for a good number of seasons, returning the cost of the item and the time involved with a successful harvest each season.

With the Quadgrow planter system, you will be able to achieve maximum results for the minimum amount of time spent, and grow the freshest and tastiest tomatoes for the whole family to enjoy.

More information about the Quadgrow and other planters can be found at Greenhouse Sensation.

Each course is led by an expert and covers the course contents with weekly video tutorials plus weekly assignments and course notes available to download.

Alex Mitchell’s four week grow your own vegetables course looks a great place to start. Check out the video below …

This particular course is a straightforward, down to earth study course that is full of tasty tips and advice.

“Edible Gardening Made Easy” takes the guesswork out of growing your own vegetables. Whether you have a large garden or just a little patio, it will help you to grow more crops than you could ever imagine.

This is just one of the many gardening courses available at My Garden School, so whatever gardening subject you may be interested in, there’s probably a course for you!

Tomato blight (also known as potato blight) is a fungal disease which is caused by wet, damp conditions and mainly affects tomato plants growing outdoors.

Tomato Blight Treatment

However, greenhouses that are poorly aerated can also be a cause of blight because of high humidity and condensation.

If it has been wet in your area for a prolonged period, and you are growing tomatoes outside, it is possible that your plants have blight.

There are two types of blight
Early Blight, (below) shows itself as dark round spots surrounded by concentric rings that fade to yellow. Wet leaves combined with cold temperatures in the Spring will leave a plant susceptible to early blight.

Early Tomato Blight

Late Blight (see below) is the most common and devastating type.

Late Tomato Blight

It starts as brown patches on the edges of leaves that spread to darkened areas on the stem, then eventually the fungus will take over the entire plant – fruit too as in the photo above.

The combination of wet leaves and high humidity over a prolonged period is almost curtain to cause tomato blight. As a fungal infection, it can easily spread from plant to plant and on fingers too, so it’s best not to touch plant leaves and run the risk of contaminating healthy plants.

It is common to have a touch of fungal infection on one or two lower leaves when growing outdoors if you live in an area that gets a lot of rain. Remove the infected leaves and leaf branches, and keep the base of plants free from decaying leaves. Good air circulation at soil level helps keep plants healthy.

Tomato Blight Treatment
However, if blight has affected a number of leaves it is time to spray with Dithane 945 or apply Bordeaux Mixture. This may stop the disease spreading, and more importantly infecting other plants, but there is no cure for blight, it is only possible to stop it getting worse.

How to prevent tomato blight
If growing outside provide some kind of shelter for your plants if possible. Wet leaves are ok for a few hours, but over-night in damp conditions followed by another wet day will lower the plants defenses.

Ferline and Legend are supposed to be blight tolerant – that is they have a greater defense against blight than other varieties. The seasons 2008 to 2010 where very wet in my area and every variety that I grew, including Ferline, contracted blight.

More suggestions to follow

• Keep tomato leaves dry – provide some shelter from the rain if possible.
• Water in the morning to that plants are not stood in excess water overnight.
• Remove some of the lower leaves (by pulling off – not cutting) if they show signs of infection.
• Don’t touch leaves of plants and spread the disease on fingers.

If all else fails the last resort to save your plants is spraying with a protective fungicide. This is available from garden centres and in the UK is called Dithane 945.

Each country has its own brand of fungicide available to gardeners so you just need to do a search for “fungicide treatment for tomato blight” and you should find a suitable product.

I sometimes hear people say things like: “a drop of rain will do them good” and “when you water, water the leaves too” my advice is to keep those leaves dry. The only time I will allow my leaves to get wet is when I foliar feed which I do on a dry day.

Rain water is good for tomato plants because it is usually slightly acid, which is how tomato plants like their water and soil!

If you need to spray your plants with a tomato blight treatment, use gloves and spray on a day when there is no wind otherwise you may get the spray blown back in your face – it’s strong stuff!

Also, cover tomato flowers with a tissue to stop the blight treatment from being applied to them.

For the beginner, perhaps the most difficult part of growing tall varieties is knowing which bits to remove – the side shoots also known as suckers.

Here’s a short video that explains where they grow and how to remove them.

Tall varieties can be grown in containers of a large size, but the most popular is the grow bag. Grow bags are ideal for tall varieties and can be adapted and improved upon using grow pots and other added extras.

Here’s one method of using large pots sunk into a grow bag and a pot in the middle for watering.

Feeding is done by applying diluted nutrients around the bottom of the stems where the fine roots grow.

This is similar to using grow pots which are sunk into grow bags and plants are then fed through the inner ring and watered through the outer ring – also known as ring culture.

Perlite and other extras can also be added to grow bags which can be used in the greenhouse, around the patio and even sunk into the garden border.

It is important to remember that tomatoes are best grown in compost/soil that is new and bought from the garden centre.

All sorts of diseases and bugs lurk in the garden soil that will kill the sensitive tomato plant.

Tall varieties also need to be stopped.
This is done by pinching out the growing tip of the main stem after a certain amount of trusses have formed – how many trusses you have on your plants depends on a number of situations.

• Whether growing outside or in a greenhouse
• The length of the growing season in your area
• The variety of plant that you are growing

If you are growing outside you would normally allow four trusses in the UK and five or six in a warmer climate.

In the greenhouse, between five and seven trusses is fine.

Some varieties take longer to mature than others – especially some of the larger, beefstake ones, so if you allow too many trusses you may find that the tomatoes on the lower trusses take longer to mature and also their size may be reduced.

Deleafing
Removing the lower leaves is a good idea because it helps air circulation around the base of a plant and old decaying leaves can encourage bugs and disease.

As lower leaves (below the first truss) begin to yellow, remove them as you would side shoots.

Leaves may be removed gradually up to the first truss, then above the first truss after the first truss is producing ripe tomatoes.

Deleafing a plant to quickly and removing too many leaves can result in a poorer harvest – not a better one as some ebooks recommend.

However, I’m a great believer in testing for myself – so if you like to experiment, test it out and see the results on one of your plants.

When transplanting from seed compost (at around three weeks) to multi-purpose compost the seedlings will be going into their new home which already contains food.

However, because their roots have been disturbed and will take a few days to re-establish themselves, a foliar feed (spraying the leaves) with organic liquid seaweed is very helpful.

Tomato plants, like humans, can suffer from stress when they are transplanted – a bit like humans when moving house! – and a feed with Organic Liquid Seaweed helps them get over the shock.

It can be used throughout the life of a tomato plant and helps keeps plants in top condition to help fight against diseases and lowered resistance through bug attack.

At this time of the season, when temperatures are low, tomato plant roots have trouble absorbing nitrogen and other minerals that they need to grow, so foliar feeding through the leaves is a good idea – it is also the quickest way to get food into a tomato plant.

Just be aware not to be over-generous because giving them too much (more than the manufacturer’s recommended amount) can damage their tender leaves and roots.

Tomato food is not given until plants reach the flowering or fruiting stage – around three months, depending on the variety, from sowing.

So if your last frost is expected around the end of May, you would sow (indoors) from the middle to the end of March.

If you are growing tomatoes in an unheated greenhouse, you could start a month earlier than above.

Knowing when to sow tomato seed is important In order to be successful.

Starting them too soon and the plants may be subject to conditions that are too cold and days that are too short. Sowing them late could mean that the season ends before the tomatoes have had time to ripen.

Grow Lights
Seeds may be sown earlier if you use a grow light to provide longer days, as it were, for the seedlings. Without extra light, seedlings can become very leggy (too tall with thin stems) and not be able to support their own weight.

Sow seed indoors around the middle of March to the end of April if you intend to grow your tomatoes outside. You cannot leave them outside overnight until all danger of frost is past which in most areas of the UK is estimated to be around mid to late May.

However, if I put my plants out at the end of May, I’ll cover them with garden fleece at night until night-time temperatures warm up a bit.

These seeds are about life size.

If your seeds are sown mid March, they should be about ready to go into their final pot or grow bag mid to late May… about 8 to 10 weeks after sowing.

It is best if your plants are almost in flower before you put them into their final position and new compost, or they will grow lots of leaves which may delay flowering.

When it says that a variety is 56 days from transplanting, it means that you should be able to pick 56 days after planting them in their final position.

I estimate that if you sow around the middle of March, plant in their final position in late May, you should be picking around the middle of July.

Tumbler (again!), one of my favourite varieties but becoming difficult to find. Red Alert is similar and also a good choice.
It is not essential that plants are in flower before planting in their final position. However, some gardeners may leave them until this stage (in smaller pots that restrict root growth) in order to force them on to the flowering stage more quickly.

• Sow seeds indoors for quickest germination.
• Use a propagator so seed shells do not stick to the seed leaves.
• Keep tomato seedlings and young plants in as light an area as possible so they don’t become leggy.

Q. Which bush – cherry variety would you recommend for beginners?

A. Tumbling Tom is excellent because it does not become leggy, it flowers early and as a bush type, does not require its side shoots removed.

Leggy means that their main stem becomes too tall too quickly because they are searching for light.

Don’t over-water seedlings … compost should be just moist – not wet.

Watering plants from below (in saucers etc.) is a good idea as it prevents the compost from becoming compacted from the weight of water from above.

• Pot seedlings into their own 3” pots at around three weeks after germination.
• Always use fresh compost because used compost may contain disease.
• Always sterilise pots and equipment that have come into contact with soil used to grow tomato plants in previous seasons – to avoid disease.

Plants cannot be left outside overnight until after your estimated last frost date.

New compost already contains food for growth, so feeding is unnecessary until all the food in the compost has been used-up by a plant.

Q. When do I feed my plants with tomato food?
A. No need to feed with tomato food until the first pea-like fruit appears (as below).

• Overfeeding young plants may cause root burn.
• N P K stands for nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium and are the three main ingredients (minerals) of plant food.

Sometimes, plants suffer from mineral deficiency because their roots are too cold to absorb the food they need, even though the compost they are in contains plenty of food. This happens mainly in the cold springtime.

A tomato plant has three stages of growth: leaf, flower and fruit. Each stage requires a different approach.

Tall plants are called cordon or indeterminate. These require their side shoots removed.

Bush plants are also called determinate and don’t require the removal of their side shoots.

Safety is an issue when using support canes. Attach a piece of heavy duty tape to the top of canes in order to see them more easily. Canes around three feet are the most dangerous … you bend down to look at your plants more closely and you could lose an eye if you don’t see the end of the cane!

Keep the compost in grow bags completely covered in order to reduce moisture evaporation.

Make holes with a pencil at both ends of your grow bag. If you make holes in the middle of a grow bag, the water runs out before it has had a chance to moisten all the compost.

Try to provide some shelter from the rain even if you grow outside because tomato plants hate their leaves constantly wet. Wet leaves in cold conditions for more than a couple of days equals tomato blight.

In the pic left, I have protected my plants with green garden refuse bags – not pretty but works well!
Cut the bottom off and slit down the side to produce a good size sheet.

Tomato blight is a fungal disease which is very destructive to plants and fruit.

Spraying with Dithane 945 at the first sign of blight is an option if you aren’t growing organically.

Blossom End Rot (BER) effects medium and large size tomatoes. Brown leathery patches form at the bottom of fruit because not enough calcium has been absorbed when the fruit was swelling.

One way to help avoid blossom end rot is to apply Chempac calcium. However, if you use good quality compost, water correctly and grow when the temperatures are suitable for tomato plants, you probably won’t need it.

The time that you may need extra calcium is when the weather is cold for a long period just before fruiting, or when the weather is very warm and your containers are drying out too quickly making it difficult to keep your compost moist.

Choose short season varieties if you live in a cool area such as Red Alert.

Q. When should I plant into a large container or grow bag when growing outside?
A. After the last frost in your area and preferably when the flower buds begin to open.

Some varieties are also cold tolerant such as Glacier. However, no tomato plant that I know of, is able to grow well if night temperatures drop below around 5 or 6°C.

Hybrid F1 varieties are first generation crosses of two other varieties.

Open-pollinated varieties grow “true to type” which means that they produce the same variety as their parent … tomato plants are self-pollinating.

You can save the seeds from open-pollinated varieties and grow the same tomatoes the following season. If you sow the seeds from a Hybrid F1, the seeds produce tomatoes with seeds that are F2’s. Unfortunately, these seeds are genetically unstable … they won’t produce tomatoes that are the same as their parents and you never know what you are going to get!

• French Marigolds and other bright blooms attract bees into the garden which help pollinate the the tomato flowers.
• Spraying with a mist of water and shaking the flowers gently also helps to encourage pollination.

De-leafing is the removal of lower leaves that are diseased or no longer of benefit to the well-being of a plant. Traditionally, it is common to remove leaves up to the truss that has ripened. So when the first truss has ripened the leaves below can be removed and so on.

The health of a tomato plant is usually displayed in its leaves. Mineral deficiencies, fungal diseases and viruses are usually shown in leaves.

To speed ripening, put tomatoes in a bowl with a ripe banana. Ripe fruit – especially a banana – gives off a gas which encourages toms to ripen.

Another consideration is soil PH – the acid to alkaline balance.
Tomato plants like this to be on the acid side at about 5.5 to 6.5 (neutral is 7.0). The important thing about soil ph is that if it’s right, it will help plants absorb nutrients, if it’s wrong, it will prevent plants from absorbing food.

It is possible to learn a lot about tomato plants and growing tomatoes but you can be very successful with just a little knowledge if you follow a few basic tomato growing tips this summer.

Sow seeds indoors in March or April.
Plant seedlings into 3” pots three weeks after germination.
Pot on to larger pots to prevent young plants from becoming root-bound.

Use fresh multi-purpose compost to fill containers or use grow bags.
Plant outside after last frost in your area.

Do not feed with tomato food until pea-like fruit appear.
If you grow tall varieties outdoors, pinch out main stem above fourth truss.

If you grow bush varieties, just leave them to do their thing!

Q. How many trusses should I have before I stop my plants?
A. The more trusses you have, the longer your tomatoes will take to mature.

If you are growing three cordon (tall) plants of the same variety, allow three trusses on one, four trusses on the second and five trusses on the third. This will mean that you will get an early harvest from the plant of three trusses and (weather permitting) get a larger harvest from the plant of five trusses later in the season.

Tomato seeds need to be sown in new compost, just below the surface and kept in a warm place for the best chance of germination. It is quite normal for one or two seeds to fail, but if more than 25% fail to come up, there is something wrong with the seeds or the way they’ve been sown.

Sow a few seeds in a small pot or propagator just below surface 1/8 inch deep. Place pot in a saucer of water or water propagator from below and cover with cling film or lid.

Keep in a warm place (around 18 – 21C, 65 – 70F) and as soon as the seedlings appear, put them in a light position (not too warm around 15 – 18C) to stop them from becoming too leggy.
After their first true leaves are growing, transplant the seedlings into individual small pots so that the seed leaves are just above the soil level (see below).



John Innes No.1 or any potting compost is good because it contains the mixture and nutrients suitable for young plants. It’s also a good idea to add a little of the seed compost to the transplant mixture (when the seedlings are transplanted into their own individual pots) as this will help the roots become established.

Using a propagator is best if you are sowing a lot of seeds. The humidity in the lid area also helps the seedlings discard the seed shells.
If the seed shells (husks) remains stuck to the seed leaves so that the leaves cannot open, gently wet the shell with a blob of water and hopefully the leaves will open and the shell drop off … it is best not to pull it off.

The idea is to grow seedlings so that they develop plenty of leaf growth rather than height. This is achieved by keeping them in a light position without giving them too much water or heat (not above 20c, best around 16-18c) or they will become too leggy and not be able to support their own weight.

A heated propagator can be very useful to keep small plants from temperatures that are too low.

Tomatoes hate cold, windy, wet weather (a bit like a British summer … just joking!), too much watering and poor light levels.
As the plants grow transplant them into bigger pots.

This is a potato leaf variety called Glacier which has outgrown its 3inch pot.
The root ball looks healthy and so do the leaves. However, if I don’t give it a bigger home, it will start to suffer.

Not only are they among the earliest to ripen and sweetest taste, perhaps their most practical quality is that they will grow in the smallest of spaces depending on the variety.

Growing cherry tomatoes is becoming increasingly popular and it is no surprise when you consider just how versatile they are.

Not only are they among the earliest to ripen and sweetest taste, perhaps their most practical quality is that they will grow in the smallest of spaces depending on the variety.

Even if you only have a balcony or window-box it is still possible to be successful. As we approach the time when it is too late to sow seeds, Tomato Plug Plants are ideal for planting in May – just keep protect until after last frost in your area.

When it is safe for them to stay outside, containers, large pots, hanging baskets and grow bags are the best way to grow tomatoes. If you plant them directly into the garden soil, they will probably be attacked by all sorts of diseases and bugs that will nibble on your toms!

Knowing which variety to grow and how much root space they need is the key, so below I have grouped the varieties that I’ve grown and can recommend for the following spaces.

Bush Varieties

Balconi Red, Minibel, Vilma and Micro Tom are excellent choices for the smallest of spaces and can all be grown in a 6 inch pot.

Hundreds and Thousands – 100s and 1000s will produce an amazing crop of tomatoes. Although they are a small cherry, their taste is excellent and well worth a try this season.

Seeds for Hundreds and Thousands are available from:
www.tomatoseedsuk.co.uk a new seed company that I’m very happy to recommend.

In my experience Tumbler (below) and Red Alert excel in a container with plenty of room for their roots and you will be rewarded with a good size cherry.

If you are interested in growing tomatoes upside down, such as in a Topsy Turvy Planter, the cherry varieties above should do well. The cherry variety Tumbling Tom would be a good choice and it comes in both red and yellow types!

Tips on Hanging Baskets and Containers

Tomato plants are very clever and will work hard to flower and produce fruit when their roots tell them that they are running out of space!

This means that if you put too many plants in a hanging basket or small container, your tomatoes may ripen smaller than expected. If you are growing cherry tomatoes or even grape size tomatoes, you may end up with very small fruit indeed!

One of the great advantages of cherry varieties is that they are more likely to ripen in a poor summer – they have less growing to do.

All of the above varieties are bush types but there are many other cherry tomato varieties available, especially among the tall/cordon varieties.

Tall Varieties

Of the tall varieties, Sungold is in my experience the sweetest. It can be grown in grow bags up against a wall or in the greenhouse. (pic below).

In 2008 I grew Black Cherry which produces dark brown coloured tomatoes. It yielded a good amount of fruit on a tall plant, vigourous plant but it can be a little difficult to know when the fruit are fully ripe because of the colour (but don’t let that put you off!) I’ll grow it again this year.

One of the best and most balanced for taste (acid/sugar content) is Gardener’s Delight. It is a red cherry and it has truly delighted gardeners for many years … very dependable.

So why don’t you have a go in 2011 … it is very rewarding!

Balconi Red is about 10 inches tall and is very compact. Easily grown in a pot.

Large pots & containers are perfect for growing cherry tomatoes. In the pot on the right (15inch)  I would grow two or even three plants depending on their root requirements.

Micro Tom (above) produces tomatoes the size of grapes and is very easy to grow on a sunny windowsill indoors.
Use stakes to support the main stem.

This season I’m growing Vilma which produces a slightly larger cherry than Micro Tom.