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One of the things that I have discovered whilst gardening in schools, is that tomatoes tend to ripen during the time when no students are about - and they also tend to go bananas when there is nobody there to pinch out the sideshoots [armpits].
So, last year I tried a few different techniques which worked amazingly well.
Firstly, I sowed very early, so that some tomatoes were ready before the end of July.
Secondly, I sowed some late, so that they were just coming into ripeness at the start of September.
Also, as mentioned on another thread, I put some vine toms in the ground and just let them do what they wanted to do - which was to ramble - and got a fantastic crop.
Another thing I did was to grow a fair amount of bush tomatoes, again with an early and a late sowing, mainly as one school was merging with another and it meant I could take the bush toms from one school to another during the hols; without the problem of stakes getting in the way. And the students could pick toms when they returned as well as before they went on hols. This worked extremely well and is a method that I will be using again, just for the breeze of growing them.
So, I've been asking people for any bush tomatoes and thanks to a few gems [Frosty Freckle, Poly and Jeannine amongst others] I now have a small collection that I have yet to grow, plus some from last year and some from my saved toms this year.
So - does anyone want to join me in growing more bush tomatoes, share their experiences, and their frame and support mechanisms, and just generally join in with growing bush tomatoes? Vines always seem to get the glory and the bushes seem to get overlooked. I think they need a thread on here all of their own, to encourage people to try them more often.
For my part, I will be sowing a handful on 22nd December.
And I mean a handful; just 3 seeds of 3 varieties; with a view to growing just one plant indoors and the rest going out into the greenhouse [unheated] as soon as it reaches 2 inches tall; and after a week of hardening off. I will be trying to get my schools to do this as well, just to see how they can extend their seasons.
So, last year I tried a few different techniques which worked amazingly well.
Firstly, I sowed very early, so that some tomatoes were ready before the end of July.
Secondly, I sowed some late, so that they were just coming into ripeness at the start of September.
Also, as mentioned on another thread, I put some vine toms in the ground and just let them do what they wanted to do - which was to ramble - and got a fantastic crop.
Another thing I did was to grow a fair amount of bush tomatoes, again with an early and a late sowing, mainly as one school was merging with another and it meant I could take the bush toms from one school to another during the hols; without the problem of stakes getting in the way. And the students could pick toms when they returned as well as before they went on hols. This worked extremely well and is a method that I will be using again, just for the breeze of growing them.
So, I've been asking people for any bush tomatoes and thanks to a few gems [Frosty Freckle, Poly and Jeannine amongst others] I now have a small collection that I have yet to grow, plus some from last year and some from my saved toms this year.
So - does anyone want to join me in growing more bush tomatoes, share their experiences, and their frame and support mechanisms, and just generally join in with growing bush tomatoes? Vines always seem to get the glory and the bushes seem to get overlooked. I think they need a thread on here all of their own, to encourage people to try them more often.
For my part, I will be sowing a handful on 22nd December.
And I mean a handful; just 3 seeds of 3 varieties; with a view to growing just one plant indoors and the rest going out into the greenhouse [unheated] as soon as it reaches 2 inches tall; and after a week of hardening off. I will be trying to get my schools to do this as well, just to see how they can extend their seasons.
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