Plant: February to March
Harvest: all summer
Home-grown tomatoes ripened in the sun taste delicious and there are lots of interesting colours and shapes to try, including purple, yellow and ridged varieties.
Many varieties are best grown in a green house as they may never properly ripen outdoors. Some will do well in a sunny spot outside, particularly at the foot of a south-facing wall.
Sowing
In late February and March sow seed in small (1-2in/3-4cm) pots, jiffy pots or root-trainers filled with compost. Sow 2 seeds per container.
Water, label then place in a bright place indoors or in a frost-free greenhouse. Water regularly to keep compost moist.
Thin to a single plant per pot once seedlings are a couple of centimetres tall (keep the stronger plant) and grow on for about 6-8 weeks.
If you don't get round to sowing tomatoes, small plants ready for potting on can be found in most garden centres.
Growing
Transplant into larger pots of compost (3"/7.5cm or more) and keep well watered.
If pots are large enough (10"/25cm or so), they can be kept in their pot or transplant them again when they start to flower into their final containers (grow bags, window boxes, large pots and even hanging baskets are fine) or plant out into the garden soil once all risk of frosts has passed (usually about the end of May).
Support each plant with a cane and regularly tie in (use garden twine) as the plant grows or it will flop over. Water daily and start feeding weekly with a tomato fertilizer.
Unless it's a bush variety, as the plant grows pinch off side branches to make a single-stemmed plant and, once the plant has made four or five sets of flower trusses, pinch out the top. Bush varieties need no training.
Tomatoes like lots of sun and plenty of water and fertilizer. The key to good tomatoes is a good daily soak to prevent split skin or blossom end rot.
Harvesting
Harvest fruit when ripe. If tomatoes remain stubbornly green, try picking and ripening on a sunny windowsill or put them in a drawer with a banana.
Varieties to try
- Alicante - heavy crop of fruit which ripens well
- Gardener's Delight - popular cherry tomato producing abundant fruit - grows inside or out
- Tigerella - interesting attractive striped fruit.
- Gold Nugget - compact plants producing early golden yellow cherry tomatoes
- Grande - bright red plum tomatoes, grow well outside
- Marmande - large beefsteak tomatoes with good flavour, best grown in a greenhouse
