Tomato Gardeners Delight
Home grown tomatoes taste delicious. So it's well worth the extra effort of growing your own. Besides, if you've got a sunny and sheltered patio you've got the ideal environment for growing them.
'Gardeners Delight' is by far the best-tasting outdoor variety we've found. And because it's a tall plant it'll crop for much longer than 'bush' or 'trailing' tomatoes. Each plant will give you dozens of large and deliciously sweet cherry tomatoes that are great for salads and cooking.
The soil around the base of the tomato plants can be used to grow a range of other vegetables like lettuces, salad leaves or herbs.
Time from seed to plate: 16 weeks
Sowing Calendar
Sow
Sow tomatoes early in the year so they have plenty of time to ripen in the summer sun. Our propagator kits with 'Jiffy 7' compost pellets are ideal for sowing. Unless you want mountains of tomatoes three jiffys should be enough. Soak the pellets in water till they expand and sow two seeds in each one so they're just covered with compost. Put them in the propagator, cover, and place on a warm windowsill or in a greenhouse. Keep moist.
Within one or two weeks the seeds should sprout. Remove the propagator lid at this stage. If two seedlings come up in the same jiffy remove the weaker one.
After a month or so the roots will have filled the jiffy and it's time to either plant out, or transfer the plants to the '3 inch' pots included in the kit to give them more growing room if it's still cold outside. Remove the jiffy bag encasing the compost, and plant firmly in the 3 inch pot filled with compost. Use the propagator lid as a watering tray.
Growing method: seed propagating kit
Grow
Once the frosts are over - around mid May - plant your tomatoes out in a grow bed positioned in a sheltered and sunny spot.
Tomatoes needs to be supported, so you'll need one of our grow beds with a metal frame, and three long bamboo canes. Fill the bed with multpurpose compost and space your three plants at 30cm intervals and push a bamboo cane in next to each one. Tie the cane to the frame at the top, then tie the plants loosely to the canes. Continue to do this as the plant grows.
Pinch off all the sideshoots that appear between the leaves and the main stem. This encourages the plant to grow tall. Once the plants reach the top of the cane snap off the growing tip to stop it flailing around.
Once your first flowers have arrived it's a good idea to start feeding your plants about once a fortnight with a little organic tomato food. This will dramatically boost the crop.
Keep well watered to ensure those toms are plump and juicy!
Harvest
Pick regularly from July to September. Don't put them in the fridge or you'll lose the delicious sweet flavour.