Embedded Files
Some other veggies that our team member Jana is trying to grow are cherry tomatoes. The plants pictured on the right have been moved from the small propagators into bigger pots only after about 2 weeks of growth. With lots of light and warmth, they grow very fast so a window sill in a warm south facing room is ideal for growing the tomato plants before moving them outside. And even when they are outside, it is recommended to keep them covered and as warm as possible - therefore a greenhouse or a simple plastic cover like the one described here is a good idea for tomatoes.
The plants on the picture have grown to this size only about 1 month after we sowed the seeds (which we bought in a garden centre). However we underestimated the seedlings and planted 2 in the same pot, thinking that one of them will be smaller and weaker and we will take it out so that only 1 plant is left in a pot. But all of the seedlings have actually grown very well so we were facing the issue of them being too close to each other in the pot, and we feared that trying to disentangle their roots might destroy them both in the process. Luckily this proved to be easier than we thought and we later managed to separate them.
Jana is also trying to grow some regular big red tomatoes - the same applies to their care as does to the cherry tomatoes described above. We have learned from our mistake with the cherry tomatoes and moved the seedlings to separate pots so that they can have lots of space to themselves and it will be easier to plant them outside when the weather gets better.
Jana's yellow cherry tomato plants (on the left) and regular big tomato plants (on the right) after 2 months' growth
After about 3 months' growth, the tomato plants started producing flowers and the flowers eventually started turning into little green tomatoes! Which was very exciting to watch. Apart from regular watering and fertilising (the plants grew so big that we needed to water them every day while they were still in pots!), it is also important to pinch out the side shoots on the plants as soon as they appear, to make sure that the plants can concentrate its energy on producing more flowers and ultimately more tomatoes. It is a bit tricky however to identify the side shoots that need to be pinched out so we recommend to watch some YouTube videos before you do this :)
In the beginning of June we were finally able to move the tomato plants outside which was a relief as they were getting way too big for our guest room! They are also quite tall and 'leggy' instead of being bushy, which we think is the result of them being too close to each other so they haven't had the space to grow wider. After moving them to our raised garden bed outside, we made sure to support them with bamboo sticks to help them stay upright - you might need to do this at several different places on the plant or even use more than one bamboo stick per plant, depending how tall and stable they are.
The plants should be more spread out than what you see on our photo on the right - it is recommended to place them about 2 feet apart (about 60cm) but we had limited space in our raised garden bed so decided to risk planting them a bit closer and see what happens. We will make sure to provide more space for them next year to enable them to grow better and become more bushy.
The big red tomatoes eventually started ripening and you can see some first tomatoes we harvested on the photo below - one of them was left on the plant for too long so got a bit 'wrinkly' but was still edible. And they were very sweet and much better than the ones we buy in a supermarket!
The yellow cherry tomato plants seem to be taking longer to produce flowers but we also harvested a few of them pictured below (they were delicious), and are currently waiting for lots of the new flowers that appeared on the plants in the begging of July to turn into nice little sweet cherry tomatoes as well :)
Page updated
Report abuse