Follow our care tips to keep your tomatoes healthy and producing plenty of flavoursome fruit for summer salads and sandwiches, or to turn into sauce, chutney or jam!
FEEDING
- Tomatoes are hungry crops, feed with Tui Performance Organics Tomato & Vegetable Pellets every 6-8 weeks to replenish nutrients and enhance their flavour.
- For supercharged feeding with quick visible results try Tui Tomato Liquid Superfood.
- Apply Tui Organic Seaweed Plant Tonic regularly for plant health and to help plants handle fluctuations in temperature.
PESTS & DISEASES
- To reduce the chance of blight and fungal diseases, avoid watering plant foliage.
- Birds love juicy tomatoes – put up netting to protect yours.
- Asparagus, basil, carrots, celery and parsley are ideal companion plants for tomatoes to help each other grow.
- Tomatoes are also compatible with chives and onion.
WATERING
- Water regularly, a deep soaking two or three times a week is best. Irregular watering can lead to blossom end rot, and if plants dry out they are more susceptible to pests and diseases.
- The best times to water are in the morning or evening rather than in the heat of the day.
MAINTENANCE
- As your tomatoes grow, remove the laterals to encourage bigger and better fruit. Laterals are the shoots that grow out from the side of the stem.
- Prune the base leaves to let sun and light in to improve air circulation to help prevent fungal disease like blight.
HARVESTING
- Allow fruit to ripen on the plant. Although tomatoes do ripen further once picked, the flavour is always at its best when allowed to ripen fully on the plant. With sun, warmth and water your tomatoes will ripen soon enough!
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Summer Tomato Care Comments
Hi, I planted a "Money maker" tomato plant in a container. It has fruited well but every tomato had a hard white core in the centre making them inedible. Why would that be please.
joy Kennedy
Hi Joy, this can be caused by inconsistent weather, hot then cold, and especially cooler nights, it is common in early spring and autumn when temperature fluctuations are common. Tui Seaweed Plant Tonic will help improve plant tolerance to temperature fluctuations and may help prevent this happening. Another reason is too much fertiliser, especially if the weather has been fluctuating hot and cold, always feed tomatoes as per fertiliser pack instructions. Some varieties, especially older varieties such as Money Maker are more susceptible to this happening as the pulp is more 'fleshy'. It is not so common with new tomato varieties. I hope this information is helpful.
Lianne
I put a new one in this year it looks like a pear, yellow in colour, very small, growing like grapes.
guy roderick thorn
Hi Guy, that sounds like a heritage variety 'Yellow Pear' which is very sweet, collect seed and see what you get next year.
Lianne
These little pear tomatoes are wonderful to pop in the mouth and chomp! Add to salads with cherry toms.
Carol
How can I protect my tomatoes against Green Vegetable bugs? Last year I had a terrible infestation of them on my tomatoes and the fruit got very damaged. I am planting them in a different garden bed this year to hopefully help. Do you have any advice?
Natasha
It is really hard to control adult green vegetable bug when populations get out of control, it is easier to control in the juvenile stage – these are the small colourful bugs you see in clusters on the underside of leaves.
Lianne