Last Saturday I planted my Cedrico tomatoes, 15 plants in all, a little earlier than I would ideally have liked but as the night-time temperatures are forecast good for the next week I had to risk it as they were getting a little too tall to stay in the pots much longer. I think once they get their feet into the border soil they are able to withstand a few low-ish temperatures a bit better so by the end of the month all should be well.
I do take a bit of time with the preparation. At first I dig a trench a 'spit' deep all round the edge of the greenhouse border. Every 2nd year I'll line the bottom with well-rotted horse muck but I did that last year so I just watered well and dusted the bottom with Q4 and Nutrimate powder. This also allows me to see what the soil structure is like and whether it is reasonably moist, which would not have been the case had I not been flooding the soil during the Winter with buckets of water. If you don't do this regularly through Winter then nutrients (or 'salts') can get locked up in the soil, especially potash which can become quite harmful apparently. As it was I was pleased the soil looked in very good heart. (Bear in mind that I am prepared to completely change the soil every 5 or 6 years if necessary).
The soil is replaced into the trench but as I do that I put the bottomless pots in the positions where I intend to grow each plant, pushing the soil around them to secure them in position, so that they are buried with the rims almost level with the finished soil surface.
A cane is put in each pot and secured to a wire with a spring clip (available from Medwyns) at about 4' height just before the roof slope. This gives me a really secure set-up that won't fall over under the weight of the plants, and is easily done in a few minutes, certainly a lot less messing than bits of string.
At this point I also place the watering pots in between each plant, which are also bottomless 'rose pots' and therefore quite deep. I will water into these once the plants are well established with the roots well down. This concentrates the water right at the roots and allows you to keep the border soil surface bone dry (not dust dry!). This is important as tommies love a hot, dry atmosphere and it also discourages the various rots than can afflict your crop. You really want to avoid splashing water around anywhere near tomatoes.
I plant them deep into good quality compost, past the bottom couple of leaves (which are removed) and water well. New 'feeder' roots will emerge along the buried stem to make them even stronger plants. The plants will not now be watered until they are almost begging me to, as I want the roots to go down into the border soil. I prefer this method over pots on grobags as I believe it does buy you some time in the middle of Summer on hot days if you cannot get to water them for whatever reason. Miss a watering when in grobags and you are storing up trouble and risking blossom-end rot, but because my plants' roots will be way down in moist soil I'll get away with missing a day or two....especially important when we go on holiday at the end of August and I'll be relying once again on my scatty daughters! This photo was taken today in 27degree temperatures and they do appear to be wilting but it's a reflex reaction and they tend to recover by the cool of evening. If they haven't then I will give them a drink.
I will be tying the plants to the canes every 6 or 8" with some pieces of velcro strip this season, something I also bought off Medwyn. It comes on a roll and there should be more than enough and again seems a lot easier than messing about with bits of string. They can also be re-used for years. I will be taking the plants as far as they can go up into the roof ridge of the greenhouse. You don't actually get many showable fruits above the 6th truss without heat during the back-end of the year, but I have a theory that the extra fruit helps balance the plants out and stops the lower ones getting too big.
I really want to get a set of 12 tomatoes at the Malvern National Championships this year having lost my first batch to a cold chill last season when they were planted in early May in order to try and time them for Llangollen at the end of August. Medwyn himself won it and having beaten him at Malvern in 2010 I'm reasonably hopeful (he's never beaten me you see!) it's the one crop I might have a chance of getting a ticket at National level. The experience of previous years tells me the majority of my fruits will start coming good during mid-September and as Cedrico is what is called a 'vine-ripe' variety they do last on the plants for several weeks in good condition. However, there is an awful lot of work to do to these small plants before then and I certainly won't be getting complacent this time around.
There are various ways of staging tomatoes and at National level they provide you with a board so that everyone is on the same playing field, and no-one can deviate from that by using other aids such as cloths. At village and town level paper plates are the norm but if the schedule allows (i.e. it doesn't say you can't!) try and incorporate aids to help your tomatoes stand out from the rest. Curtain rings under a piece of black cloth work well, or some dry play sand or vermiculite on the plate. In fact anything that will stop your tomatoes rolling about on the bench, for instance when stewards have to move them to make room for other exhibits. The judge should always endeavour to leave them in the state he found them, but if they need a bit of effort to stop them lolling around he aint gonna bother!
This weekend I'll be attempting to get a few stations of long beet sown, plant my bags of 'Amour' potatoes, and collar up the blanch leeks that I planted out last weekend, although if the weather stays as 'scorchio' as it currently is I may well be tempted instead to pour a few bevvies, put my feet up and watch the weeds grow! Talking of weeds, I've just remembered another way of staging tomatoes, although not one i've yet tried myself, which is back on your kitchen table 100 miles away .....a la Dave Thornton.
No comments:
Post a Comment