The great outdoors
Growing tomatoes outside is risky, says Toby, but with the right breeds and conditions you can enjoy a fruity feast
SHOULD the summer give us Cornish camping weather (aka relentless rain), tomatoes grown outside are likely to succumb to fungal blight. Although always a gamble because you can never side-step this drizzle-loving disease, there are ways to increase your odds of success.
Blight tends to attack in July and August, so toms that are quick out of the stalls help to spread your bets. Even if they never reach their full potential, you’ll still get a reasonable crop to scoff.
Fleet-footed types include the bush tomatoes ‘Tumbler’ and ‘Latah’ which produce as early as July, with a single hurrah of large cherry sized fruits. Both are excellent trailing out of pots or over the edge of a raised bed. But if you want a tom for a growbag/pot, classic cordon ‘Gardeners Delight’ is one of the fastest runners and riders.
Pea-sized Pimpinellifolium varieties, which share the robust genetics of the original South American tomato forebears, are also a good bet. ‘Red Currant’, which was discovered sprawling – make that sunbathing – on a Peruvian beach in 1707, will produce a prolific number of pea-sized fruits for eating fresh right through the summer. It is remarkably disease-free, even in cooler parts of the country.
Then there are high-tech grafted tomatoes, such as cherry ‘Lizzano’ (Suttons), the big ‘Buffalo Steak’ and plum ‘Giulietta’ (Thompson & Morgan). Like grafted roses, the top of the plant is a cultivar with good eating properties while the root adds disease-defying vigour. Although expensive at up to £6.99 each, these plants succeed where lesser tomatoes fail.
How you grow is also important. Tomatoes need sun, but also good air circulation. So if planting into growbags, make and plant up just two holes at either end of the bag – never three, as the leaves will become crowded. Toms also require food in the form of high phosphate and potash tomato fertiliser, both to boost production and also to toughen up the leaves, making them less vulnerable to blight.
So hedge your bets – and outdoor tomatoes are a gamble worth taking.
“You can increase your odds of success”