How your tomato thinks
Post categories: tomato
| 17:42 UK time, Thursday, 9 July 2009
The longer I grow my own, the more I realise how important it is to understand your plants' point of view to get the best out of them.ÌýÌýIt may sound like a bit of a weirdÌýPrince Charles-ey, talk-to-the-trees sort of thing, but thinking about what your plants actually want can give great results.
Take tomatoes.Ìý In the past I've always been a bit vague about growing them, because I didn't really appreciate how they were trying to grow.ÌýÌýI half-heartedly pulled off sideshoots (known as "pinching out")Ìýbecause I'd read you had to, but I didn't know why.Ìý (By the way, there's a great video showingÌýhow to do it at , a blog all about a guy growing what looks like a year's supply of veg on a balcony).Ìý
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Result - bushy plants, few tomatoes.Ìý And then they got the Ìýand died anyway, boo hoo.
Then I learnt a few facts about tomatoes that made me realise where they're coming from.Ìý First off, back home in their native South America, tomato plants live for several years, growing into a big sprawling vine.Ìý It's the cold that kills them in the UK - you can actually keep them alive over winter in a heated greenhouse, if you can be bothered.Ìý Second, you have to ask yourself what the tomato plant wants out of its little life.Ìý Answer - it wants as many tomatoey children as possible.Ìý And it manages that by having lots of tomatoes, all full of seeds.Ìý
So, why doesn't it just go all out and have huge bunches of tomatoes right away?Ìý Well, it doesn't know it's not in nice balmyÌýMexico, does it, especially after being kept on a nice warm windowsill until summer.Ìý For all it knows, it's got years of steady, unspectacular tomato production ahead of it, so it reasonably gets on with growing itself into a big strong plant that can survive for a while.
That's where we come in, thwarting all its attempts to grow bushy with our snippy fingers, and stressing it out.Ìý "Oh no," it thinks, "I'm in a dodgy situation here," and so it changes its tactics.Ìý Instead it goes all out for tomatoes, to make sure there's a next generation to take its place.Ìý Result - loads of tomatoes!
Word of advice - don't try this with "bush" or "determinate" types of tomatoes, which have been specially bred to only live one year.Ìý They know they're doomed anyway, so they go for the many tomato tactic straight off.
Amazing tomato fact
This isn't very useful, but I couldn't resist putting it in.Ìý Did you know that if you get a , and stick them together, they'll survive and grow?Ìý It's not much good though, because you have to dig the potatoes up before the tomatoes are ready, or leave the potatoes to rot to let the tomatoes ripen.
ÌýP.S. The Hampton Court Palace Flower ShowÌýstarted on the 7th and runs until July 12. Apparently, there's a section this year devoted to growing your own produce. I'm going along tomorrow to have a look so I'll report back next week. In the meantime, if anyone else managed to get over there, let us know your thoughts!
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