Tomatoes Galore!

I really do have to write about my tomatoes as they have just gone beserk this year!

I did quite a bit of reading in the spring when I planted my seeds to ensure that I grew a spectacular crop but little did I know that I was in for much more than that!

You may have all read about that guy who reckons that he has the magic technique for growing the best crop of tomatoes (Called: Organic Tomato Magic) Well I was determined to give it a try regardless of all bad press he seems to get as I found a download of his technique here for free.  Not everyone believes it but after loads of reading I have come to believe that he is on the right track.  It seems that the technique of pruning back your tomato plants creates bushier and more fruitful plants!  According to the old Italian way they used to prune back the leaves and this made the plant put all of its energy into fruit.

I, of course, rushed out to my glasshouse as soon as I read this (before reading everyone else's opinions) and cut back all the leaves off my plants below the first branch of flowers. This left the main leaves on top like giant solar panels. My plants looked awful to begin with, I thought that maybe I had been a little hasty in my pruning as the leaves started to shrivel up and go all curly.  The plants looked terrible for the first week.

But then the magic occurred.  My plants started to produce huge amounts of flowers, I keep trimming back the leaves below the flowers and bingo all the energy goes into the plant instead of the leaves. It really works.  Then you can trim the top to stop them growing too tall and get a second crop from new shoots coming off the main branches.

So in summary:

• Once the first branch of flowers appears prune off all the lower leaves below the flowering branch.
• Keep doing this each time a new flower branch appears.
• Cut off the little side shoots at each leaf junction as well
• Really water your plants, not just a hand water - give them a soaking and every couple of days mix up some liquid blood and bone and water and feed this to each plant. (Nitrosol is easily bought from your local supermarket).  This keeps your plant healthy.
• I have heard egg shells are great to sprinkled around the base of the plant and comfry leaves are an amazing natural tomato compost. I also use tomato food every few weeks sprinkled around the top soil and water it well in.

Please let me know if you have any other special tips I can add to this.

Another great technique is shown on this French website where they shown you diagramatically how to prune you plants to generate bigger crops. You'll get the general idea. Ill translate it and make a new post to explain the technique.

You can see how I have trimmed back all of the leaves at the base of the plant.
I still have a lot more trimming to do as the plants are fruiting like crazy at this level!

This is the result at the top where the plants are flowering profusely and I have to yet again do some more pruning of the leaves. I have cut the tops of each plant before they touched the roof so will allow for some lateral growth and a second crop of flowers.

View from glasshouse door. You cant see much fruit as it is all green but under the mid section leaves it is brimming with fruit.  It is now time for me to prune back the mid section leaves to below the top section flowers.