Help the tomatoes are taking over!

[Incy]

Having spent most of yesterday filling hanging baskets with tumbling tomatoes, I thought that I might release enough space in the greenhouse to be able to finally pot up the aubergines. Poor little things have really outgrown their 3" pots and are desperate for more space.
I swear the other, larger tomatoes grew while I was removing the tumbling toms. you would have thought that 18 plants out would allow a few more in but my toms are going mad. They are now so tall that I willl need to move them down to the bottom shelf as they are hitting the roof.
The last 2 years I lost all my toms to blight just as they were starting to ripen so I am very nervous of moving these outside although they should be ok.....Any suggestions on tomato control would be welcomed

[gojiberry]

If your area is prone to blight you will be really hard pushed to grow tomatoes outside. You could try a blight resistant variety but I find that with tomatoes that is no garantee they will survive. You could spray with a copper based fungicide if blight is forecast but that will mean checking every day.

Ian

[Incy]

Thanks Ian, appreciate the advice. Everyone I know round here lost all their outdoor toms last year

[cheery tree]

wish my tomatos were as good as yours mine are taking a long time no trusses yet not very good at all

[Alison]

Last year was a particularly bad year for blight, fingers crossed if we get the nice hot summer that they are currently trying to tell us that we will have, then blight will not be so much of problem. In fact, last year was the first time I got hit by blight at home and even then I still managed to get a reasonable crop.

[Incy]

Fingers crossed for the good summer then

[Two_Sheds]

I am giving up growing outdoor toms ... I just have a half dozen plants this year, for greenhouse/patio growing

[Incy]

Here's a pic of the monster toms in my greenhouse
And one of the lovely hanging basket sticks my OH sweetly made to help house the tumbling toms

[Two_Sheds]

I love all the hanging baskets. Beggar to water though

[Incy]

Not a problem as in the garden so a pleasant daily task. As everything else needs watering too it gets done in the evening if it hasn't rained, usually with a nice glass of something to help

[cupcake]

Ah now! I supervise OH whilst I have the glass!

[Incy]

That's an idea. He's pretty good.
I counted how many toms I still have in pots in the GH yesterday. 26!
Where am I going to put them all?!?!
Am now desperately looking for good homes for tomato plants

[snohare]

On the subject of blight, I came across an interesting American website recently while researching blight on tomatoes. It was about an area formerly famed for its tomatoes, which had been absolutely decimated; nobody was growing tomatoes anymore. What one clever bod discovered though was that growing tomatoes espalier fashion, with only one layer of leaves to dry off after rain, meant that the leaves dried off sufficiently quickly to greatly reduce the risk of infection by blight spores. So basically trimming leaves off the trusses to leave a plant looking denuded works well in not reducing yield (apparently the roots do most of the work once they get going) and reducing blight infection. The other thing that they started doing was putting up a wee strip of glass or polythene verandah above the plants to help keep direct rain off.
If you have a wall with wires, might work well to take some seedlings.

[Incy]

Thank you snohare.
That certainly sounds like it could be worth trying. Glad to hear they don't rely too heavily on their leaves too as when I went out at lunchtime today the strong gusts of wind had completely flattened my broadbeans and are doing their best to strip the leaves of my toms in baskets

[RedThorn]

Perhaps start planning what you're gonna do with all those toms?