Ruud Kleinpaste: Tomatoes later in season

We built a new Tunnel house around Christmas – meaning: we were far too late with our summer crop – just a few plants waited patiently in their pots to be put in the new facility and yes… they are having a go.   Relative warmth in February, March and April gives them ability to grow fruit well into autumn and when they are inside glass houses or tunnel houses they’ll even carry on in early winter. (that’s the situation in Canterbury)  In warmer areas it is usually a lot easier to keep on going; Auckland was a great place to keep the climbers on track.  A Sunny patch in the vegetable garden is probably one of the most important contributing factors. Six or even more hours a day is needed to keep it all going.  This year has been a pain – everything needs adjustment.   In our garden everything is late. But planting sizable tomatoes in early January is rather ridiculous… But there are some things you can do to get some crops in late summer.   It is important to trim the bottom new side shoots and let air circulate as much as possible. Trim off he yellow leaves too.    This is what it looks like after trimming.  The air movement reduces relative humidity and that allows the leaves below to dry much quicker. No fungal troubles ahead!  Keep on removing the “laterals” that form in between the new leaves – laterals attempt to make more and more side shoots, but too many of them result in too many small fruits all over the plants.  We had to plant our late tomatoes in excellent soil that looked and acted like compost-rich material. This allowed a quick and useful, fertile soil around the main stalk. This in itself made the roots grow fast and in all sorts of directions.   Every week or 10 days I made sure that the plants were well watered with a decent amount of water over the plant’s area of growth. Nitrophoska Blue is a brilliant complex of fertilizer in the form of a granular mixture. When plants are watered the granules are slowly released and deposited around the root zone.    Every 2 days I aim to gently water the plants; not too much… just keeping up with the liquid fertiliser which allows the tomatoes to grow new, deep-green leaves and healthy new fruits. My secret is SeaWeed Tea from Wet and Forget. I dilute the Seaweed Tea in the watering can (or an old plastic drinking bottle) to make the liquid look like a week tea.   The brilliant trick is to water the plants and root zones every 2 days or so and add some liquid fertiliser at the same time.  The tomatoes will reward you with great, tasty fruit while growing with Vapour Trails, so to speak. That means keeping an eye on the density of foliage, which needs to be trimmed regularly – give the plants space!  LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.