Is it yield or quality you are looking for when growing tomatoes?
Perhaps if you are a commercial grower and you are selling by the weight then yield. If you are growing for your own consumption then clearly quality from each plant is best.
Now the interesting bit - I have conducted a 2 year study on tomato growing in my own veg garden. My conclusion is if you want to grow luscious juicy, but best of all flavoursome tomatoes, then water them only once a month!
Your nuts! I hear you mumble. A tomato is 90% water, so if you water regularly and copiously then indeed the plant will support all you can pick and more. But,what I am finding time after time is if they are over watered, you get a mildly reddish inside, lots of water but no flavour to the tomato. If you refrain with the hose you will get a deep red centre and, best of all, the flavour is amazing.
The secret is the preparation of the soil with a very, very heavy dressing of bulky organic matter in the winter and preferably left to break down in its own time. This will feed your tomatoes and control water uptake later.
Then a double dig or a very deep cultivation with a rotovator and then left to settle again in about late march. Planting is very much down to preference now and you may well have brought some stock on early in the green house.
Once planted give the young plants a good drenching (preferably with stored rainwater) letting the water go well below the roots. Water once again just as the first flowers come into bloom and then wait. Obviously, if there is rain in the meantime you have to let it do its thing, but its now a case of allowing the sun to ripen them off.
If you want quantity then plant more plants but we get more than we can handle for the whole season on ten plants.
We are eating the best ever tomato and it is taking very little work.
Its less effective on very light sandy soils unless you work extremely hard on preparation as described before and the advice is no good for grow bags.
Tomatoes by the basket load.
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