by Wally Richards
TOMATOES
Happy New Year — and a Great Gardening and Healthy New Year.
Those of us who got plants in early will have had the benefit of ripe tomatoes before Christmas.
Those with later plantings will find these starting to show ripe (on the vine) tomatoes about now.
Yes, all tomato plants are technically vines, but they are categorized as indeterminate (vining) or determinate (bushy), with indeterminate types growing tall and sprawling, requiring support like stakes or cages to manage their long, continuous growth, while determinate types stay shorter, produce fruit all at once, and need less staking (Russian Red is an example).
I remember years ago visiting a place where a tomato plant was growing hydroponically in a large glasshouse.
The plant (vine) stretched/growing over 10 metres long with a bare trunk coming out of the hydroponic system and it was only the last metre or so had foliage and fruit.
It would have been 2-3 years old and in a climate zone which was frost free in winter plus protected in the glasshouse against the elements.
Whether your tomato plants are in a glasshouse, or outdoors; growing in soil or containers the same care applies to them if you wish to have the plants producing ripe fruit into winter.
A mistake that many can make is once they start cropping, people stop feeding them and thus they run out of steam and start declining.
The reverse should apply you need to feed them more once the fruit are ripening to maintain the vigor and flavour of the produce.
Many gardeners have found that my ‘Wallys Secret Tomato Food’ with or without Neem Granules (actually that’s the name but it is Neem Powder that is used, not the larger particles of the granules) if you have Wallys Neem Tree Powder then you can mix Wallys Secret Tomato Food with an equal amount of powder and you have the complete food (Wallys Secret Tomato Food with Neem Granules).
The Neem Granules also feed your plants and help deter insect pests.
The products, though named for tomatoes are excellent to use on any flowering and fruiting plants such as capsicum, chili, berry plants, zucchini, pumpkins, strawberries and other vines such as passion fuit and grapes. (For fruiting trees it’s best to use animal manures and Wallys Fruit & Flower Power while trees are in their fruiting cycle, apply to the drip line)
Wallys Secret Strawberry food is basically the same ingredients as Wallys Secret Tomato Food with Neem Granules. It is the application rates that is different.
So the two foods are completely interchangeable: just alter the amounts given relative to the size of the plants, where strawberries are given about a quarter teaspoon per plant (125ml spoon supplied) and mature tomatoes a 50 mil scoop which is about two desert spoons level.
The products are applied on the growing medium, in the root zone, where you water so they progressively dissolve, washing the nutrients down into the soil; there they are taken up by the plant’s roots.
As you see that the products are disappearing then you should refresh by adding a little more. Alternatively about every 3-4 weeks add a little more. All good stuff.
Part of the secret and success of these foods is the excellent flavour the produce will have and the reason for this is that Wallys Fruit and Flower Power is part of the secret formula.
Lots of potash which provides steady firm growth, promotes flowering and gives the best taste capable of the varieties grown.
The things to look out for with your tomato plants unless they are the determinate types like Russian Red bush type tomatoes, that you do not remove laterals (unless you want to strike some as new plants)
On the taller growing plants remove the laterals that form at the axis of the trunk and leaf.
When you allow these to grow you will not only have a sprawling uncontrollable plant but much smaller fruit as too much energy is going into the foliage and less for increasing the potential size of the fruit.
Some laterals removed which are about 8-10 cm long can be used to strike as free new plants that can extend your tomato season well into winter especially if you have a glasshouse or grown in containers which you can move to protect.
Put the laterals into a small container with potting mix or compost and keep moist.
Young plants, like young people, have a lot more vigor than old plants/people (tell me about it. 🙂 )
Blossom end rot is a curse and that is when the bottom of the fruit has this black or dry patch. The top part of the fruit can still be eaten by cutting off the damaged bottom part.
The cause is simply that there was not enough moisture at fruit set time to move the calcium across the set.
This normally is caused by uneven watering where the growing medium lacks moisture for a short time usually during a hot, sunny day.
This is particularly a problem in container grown plants that can dry out too quickly and often does not occur in open ground grown plants as there is always moisture coming up from below except in very dry times.
I have also experienced this happening on tall grown plants in a glasshouse in containers where the growing medium had ample water but because of the heat the plant cant keep up with the moisture loss as the leaves transpire that the upper trusses lack enough moisture at fruit set.
To overcome this you can spray the foliage over and under with Wallys Vaporgard which will reduce the plants need for water by about 30% as the Vaporgard reduces leaf transpiration.
To ensure fruit set especially in a glasshouse or tomatoes growing in a very sheltered situation you need to go out during the day on a nice sunny day and tap the plant to make it vibrate.
The vibration moves the pollen across the set.
It would be a good idea to water the plants about half an hour before hand to ensure there is ample moisture at fruit set.
There is another problem that can happen when you remove laterals, leaves or pick fruit at a time when the atmosphere is humid; a disease can enter the wound and travel down the trunk to set up a rot which we call collar rot.
This rotting cuts off the roots from the canopy and the plant progressively wilts till it dies.
It will start to send out aerial roots just above where the rot is taking place and if near enough to the growing medium then you can mound up and maybe save the plant.
One gardener told me a couple years ago that he noticed on some of his tomato plants the rot starting on the trunk and he painted undiluted Wallys Liquid Copper on the area and stopped the rot.
If you have Wallys Copper Nutrient it could be a wise move to spray your tomato plants with that once a month to help prevent disease problems and blights.
I am currently enjoying my own home-grown tomatoes in sandwiches and fried on toast.
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While on the subject of grown produce, here’s a recent article about microplastics of interest–
Daily Mail graphic reveals the fast food items with the most cancer-causing microplastics in them
Many fast food favorites have what health experts consider dangerously high levels of phthalates, toxic plastic chemicals that leech into food products.
From Taco Bell, McDonald’s and Chick-fil-A to even healthier options like Sweetgreen, phthalates have infiltrated a sector of the food industry that millions of Americans turn to for accessible and inexpensive food.
Fast food is known to be high in calories, fats, and sugar, but many consumers are unaware that their drive-through favorites are laced with the additives used to make plastic items more flexible and long-lasting that leach from their packaging into the food.
The lengthy journey from raw ingredient to store shelf creates multiple opportunities for phthalates to contaminate food. These chemicals migrate from plastic packaging, manufacturing equipment like PVC conveyor belts, plastic tubing and workers’ gloves during handling.
Exposure over time to phthalates is believed to contribute to a wide range of illnesses. As disruptors of the hormone regulation system in the body, the plasticizers have links to breast cancer, decreased fertility, low birth weight, obesity and diabetes.
Phthalates also have links to impacting the immune and cardiovascular systems, contributing to heart attacks, strokes and high blood pressure, as well as system-wide inflammation that can exacerbate existing health problems.
The latest data on phthalates in foods comes from PlasticList, a database run by former tech leaders, epidemiologists, and privately funded labs with environmental and biomedical experts.