Rob Smith has some top tomato care tips
Use ‘comfrey crumb’ to feed your fruiting plants for a bumper crop
With the tomato harvest in full swing, it’s time to make sure you get the most from each and every plant and with a few simple steps you can help ensure bumper crops for weeks to come.
With this year heading to being one of the best summers we’ve had for a long time, it really does pay to look after tomatoes.
If your plants are like mine, they’ll have been romping away well and producing plenty of fruit, but if they’re in pots they’ll need lots of food to help them along.
As regular readers are aware, I’ve made my own comfrey tea to feed my fruiting plants, but it has become extremely pungent in the hot weather – even to the point it makes me feel queasy lifting the lid off the container!
Therefore, I’ve decided to use comfrey as a mulch instead. If you didn’t already know, comfrey rots down to a fine powder or ‘crumb’ very quickly, so it’s perfect to use as a top dressing to hungry tomatoes.
Simply harvest the whole comfrey plant, making sure to leave around 10-15cm (4-6in) above ground level, then finely chop or shred the leaves and scatter a 5cm (2in) layer around each tomato plant. Not only will this act as a mulch, meaning it stops water from evaporating from the soil as quickly, but it will rot down and feed your tomatoes in the coming weeks, just when you want an extra boost to help ripen fruits before the weather starts to get cooler and many gardeners get stuck with green tomatoes.
While you’re adding comfrey crumbs to your plants, it’s an ideal time to remove yellowing foliage from around the trusses. By doing this, you’re allowing more sunlight to the fruit, aiding the ripening process and also removing the older leaves which are more prone to becoming wet (from watering) and thus suffering from late-season blight.
Don’t let the removed leaves go to waste, though. Make an effective aphid spray by soaking five or six large leaves in two cups of water for 24 hours, straining, diluting 50/50 with fresh water and spraying on affected plants.