Tomato growing

Growing tomatoes here on the Sunshine Coast has been a learning curve for me. Back home in the Waikato, NZ, we start our seeds off in late winter, under glass and then potted them up, keeping them in a glass house until all chance of frost has gone, sometimes this can be in late September, early October. Over here, I tried growing tomatoes like that and they did not like the summer heat of January and February, so now I grow them in winter.



This year I have grown some seed myself, but struggle to find the heirloom varieties I grew back home. One year I had 21 different varieties growing, including a white tomato. At the moment I am growing, Black Russian, Apollo and Rouge de . I grew them on it pots and them planted them deeply into a raised garden bed that I had built up with grass clippings, shredded paper, cow manure, compost and bagged garden soil. I discovered tomato cages at Bunnings that I am very pleased with so far. I have four plants in the raised garden, 4 in big pots, and the other 4 in another garden bed.  I'm using the tomato cages on 6 of them and traditional staking on the other 6.

The other issue I am struggling to contend with is fruit fly and a nasty caterpillar that eats its way through the tomato, even when it's still small and rock hard. I have had to invest in fruit fly exclusion bags and mesh. The mesh covers the raised garden and the other tomatoes I am putting the developing truss into the bag once the flowers are pollinated and the toms beginning to form.  Even with having to do this, I still prefer home grown tomatoes to store bought ones. The flavour of plant ripen tomatoes far out classes that of the flavourless store bought varieties.








The other trick I have is to feed my tomato plants with worm wee once a week. I collect that from my worm farm. The toms love it and the size of the trusses and toms on them is testament to that.

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