Homes & Interiors

Grow Your Own: Tomatoes

 

Here’s our guide to growing tasty tomatoes. If you haven’t got much space, they’re easy to grow in containers or hanging baskets – dwarf or trailing tomatoes will still produce a bumper crop.  What you’ll need:  Small plastic pots  Multi-purpose compost  Watering can  Freezer bags  Tomato food  Bamboo canes

Step 1: Fill a few plastic pots with compost and water it well – go carefully so you don’t splash water everywhere. Let excess water drain away.

Step 2: Put seeds on the surface of the damp compost, allowing five or six per pot. Add a layer of dry compost so the seeds are just covered.

Step 3: Put each pot in a freezer bag and keep them on a warm windowsill until seedlings appear. Remove the bags and continue to grow on.

Step 4: When seedlings have four leaves carefully remove them from the pot and transplant them into containers of their own. Water well.

Step 5: Watch your seedlings grow, watering regularly and putting them outside on warm days. Plant them out when they’re around 15cm high.

Step 6: There are lots of ways to grow tomatoes. Plant them in the ground, growing bags, pots or hanging baskets – the choice is yours.

Step 7: Start giving plants a weekly liquid feed once they begin to produce flowers – you’ll find several to choose from in-store.

Step 8: Support plants with bamboo canes if they get big and, here’s the best bit, begin picking juicy tomatoes as soon as they appear and ripen.
Space Saver: Grow dwarf or training tomatoes if you’re short on space – they’re ideal for a pot or hanging basket and still produce a bumper crop.