After just 10 days we have had some impressive root growth on our Tomato plants growing in our ViviGrow Planter (previously Hydrogrow NFT). Competitive Gardeners will love our advanced Vivigrow Planter which produces bigger harvests because the roots grow in super-aerated water instead of being constrained in wet soil.

Watch our Gardening Angel Paul, sowing our first Tomato seeds for 2012 in our Greenhouse. In this video he is sowing 4 varieties of tomatoes, Country Taste, Cristal, Sungold and Sungella. The seeds have been transfered over to a heated propagator and in about 3 weeks time we will be able to see seedlings appear and in 8 weeks time, they should be large enough to transfer to seperate pots.

For hints tips on growing tomatoes, visit our tomato growing advice page.

http://www.greenhousesensation.co.uk/advice/growing-tomatoes/

Watch our Gardening Angel Paul pricking out Piccolo tomato seedlings. When the seedlings have rooted through, he will then transfer them into a larger pot or one of our Quadgrow Planters. For more hints and tips on growing tomatoes please visit out advice page.

Perfect for growing tomatoes, the Quadgrow planter produces bigger harvests than plant pots and growbags thanks to the clever way that it keeps plants perfectly watered at all times.

Unless you are growing tomatoes which are a Bush variety you should remove the sideshoots from your tomato plants to focus your plant's energy into producing fruit rather than foilage. 

A sideshoot is a shoot that grows at about 45 degrees from the main truss (stem) between the leaf and main stem. Take care not to confuse these sideshoots with the trusses which are the stems that produce the flowers, which turn into tomatoes. We find it is better to leave the top few leaves until we're sure they are sideshoots.

Simply pinch the sideshoot out with your thumb and finger.

Remove your sideshoots every week because the sooner they are removed the more energy your plant will out into fruit production.

You will need to secure your tomatoes to a support (whether that's your greenhouse roof, bamboo stakes, a specialist tomato frame or a homemade structure).

Below is a video of Paul, our Gardening Angel, training the tomato stem directly upwards to use the greenhouse roof as the support. You should tie a loop of string around the stem near the bottom of the plant when flowers first appear and then you can gradually twist the plant around the tomato plant stem as the plant grows.  

A big thanks John and Diana from Somerset who have been growing tomatoes in the Octogrow and sent us a great update. Here’s what they said;

“The Octogrow has been amazing this year. We have one in the greenhouse and one outside, and the champion tomato is Brandywine, a wonderful pink-red and each fruit weighing up to 12oz so far, but bigger ones to come! (our local restaurant is now buying them). We have tried growbags, gravel trays and pots but Octogrow is definitely the answer - many thanks.”

Gee, thanks John and Diana, we're pleased that you are so happy and had a great crop.

Our first tomato to form is a Sungold which is a very sweet cherry variety and an office snacking favourite, though Emma tends to get carried away and burns her tongue on them -something to do with acid and greed!

Sungold takes its name from the colour, it ripens to a lovely golden orange. The Sungold tomato seeds were started in a heated Vitopod propagator in a heated greenhouse on December 20th and transplanted to a Hydrogrow NFT on March 25th.  The plant is already 1.5metres tall!

A word or two about San Marzano tomatoes

I'm particularly looking forward to the San Marzano tomatoes which we are growing in the polytunnel. Our Chairman and founder John M grew San Marzano tomatoes in his polytunnel last year and they tasted fabulous. This Italian plum variety is considered by many chefs to be the best tomato for pasta sauces in the world and you won't find us arguing with that!

I knew we were right to be fantatical about them last year, they even have their own website

http://www.sanmarzanotomatoes.org/

The skin is quite thick and the flavour has just the right amount of sweetness without too much acidity.

It's an indeterminate (cordon) variety, so it must be grown with supports and ours were huge last year, making several large batches of sauce. The plant looks very impressive when it's fruiting because the tomatoes which are about 3 - 4 inches long, grow close together in clusters.

In the greenhouse, the weather is warming up a little, so Paul's taken the lids off the Vitopod propagators. We still have 12 tomato plants in the Vitopods, we will be picking the best 4 for the Quadgrow veg pots at the Greenhouse Sensation office in the coming weeks.