I'm a little late in potting on my tomatoes. They've been in singular pots and growing quite nicely but today my eldest and I decided to pot them up into their final buckets to grow on in the greenhouse.
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| One large barrow of top soil tipped on an old sheet of plywood |
I no longer grow in just compost, it doesn't hold the moisture and I like to give them a little extra to help them along, that said a lot of what they need is provided in the comfrey food I'll be feeding them every third day whilst they're growing and good old sunlight!
Here's the mix I'm using this year:
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| Four bags (I added one more) of compost three shovels of wood ash. |
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| Four pots of chicken manure pellets |
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| The mix coming together |
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| Lots and lots of broken egg shells for added calcium. (these stunk) |
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| Mixed together and looking good |
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| Filling the buckets - these all have holes in the bottom and then an inch of so of stones/broken pots |
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| Plants in the greenhouse looking happy |
I'm please I've got this job done, it should have been three weeks ago really but it won;t have affected them too much. I've got two types of plant food brewing at the moment, comfrey and nettle, ready for when they start growing and producing fruit. I still need to pot on my chillies, cucumbers and cucamelons but that will have to wait until next week now. I'm tempted to set up a drip irrigation system I brought for a few pounds at a car boot sale in this greenhouse to ease my evening work load and to make sure they get enough water if I'm not there on an evening.
What does everyone grow their tomatoes in?
Also don't forget about my challenge from yesterday's post- lets see what you look like!
Our's are outside in a huge tub, just 3 plants, each different, with potting compost, loads of chicken poo pellets. None in the green house no room this year, but they always do OK outside. I have stopped buying compost from the big outlets, the quality I have from bags last year from B&Q was terrible, so much failed.
ReplyDeleteI have been growing mine in pots for the last few years, this year I did them in five gallon buckets. I did mix lots of dried manure, eggshells and a sprinkle of Epsom salts... and they are doing spectacularly, they are two feet tall by now and I have my first pea sized tomatoes. I have never had them do so well. For watering I am using the soda pop bottle drip and give them a splash of Miracle-Grow once a week.
ReplyDeletehttp://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZD8n6PmwLOc/VVZqPH97a0I/AAAAAAAAGAg/dXKK_Mq85bs/s1600/P1080164.JPG
But then just about everything green is doing well this year as we have no blights on the trees which usually spill over to the veggies.
so far, all of my tomatoes are doing great and most have small green tomatoes on them. i've planted a LOT of them so if they all produce, i will be a very busy cook and canner!
ReplyDeleteThat's a hell of a potting mix! I'm not doing tomatoes this year but i' writing the recipe down for next year :)
ReplyDeleteAlso responding to your challenge- here yuo are- http://myempireofdirtgarden.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/phew.html
You asked for it! haha :)
*You
DeleteDo you grow your tomatoes in pots and not in the ground due to a short growing season there? How are you making your comfrey food, tea? Dried?. I have a good bit of comfrey started and next year should be able to harvest it for fertilizer. My tomatoes are not making very good this year. My plants were swimming in water to long I guess. Some rallied after all the rain stopped. I thought they would be ok but mmm not very tomatoes. Of course now we are at the time of year we can't buy a drop of rain LOL. Mother Nature surely keeps us on our toes!
ReplyDeleteDUH, sorry I see you said you had comfrey and nettle food brewing. So your using a comfrey tea. Reading to fast missed that.
ReplyDelete