How many tomato plants do you grow?

[Chicken6]

I have 30 plum tomato plants, 10 100's & 1000's, 10 shirley and 10 (from own seed) medium size salad type

how many should I plant. I was thinking 16 plum, 4 shirley in the PT, the 100's & 1000's in hanging baskets at home
and the rest of the shirley outside and possibly the plums too.

I am hoping to freeze loads of the harvest to keep us going through the winter but not sure if I would have enough plants.

What do you think?

[Sky]

We had six on the go this year but next year I'm going to plant more as we didn't have enough to freeze any.

[red]

really depends how many tomatoes you eat!

I grow 16 plants, and if we dont have blight - thats plenty for us. mind you if i had a PT i would do more.. 16 is all i can get in the greenhouses

[Ellendra]

I used to plant 6 every year, and they'd try to take over the world, producing more tomatoes than my family could eat in a year. But we've moved since then. I don't know how many I'll get planted. I have 4 seeds started, along with 6 melon seeds and 6 squash. I'd love to have a huge garden, but it'll depend on my health.

I guess the answer is, how ever many I can get in the ground.

[Sky]

We must 'really' like tomatoes then as we just don't have enough.
Prob comes from being deprived of them when they cost about a dollar each out of season in the NZ supermarkets!
Or maybe the varieties we've grown are just a bit feeble, I can't remember their names but they're those little cherry tomatoes that you can conveniently just pop into your mouth like sweeties every time you visit the greenhouse ... I've just eaten about a million with my sandwich this lunch time.

[Millymollymandy]

I had 12 cherry tom plants last year but it wasn't enough. I'd have got a few more toms out of the plants but they did succumb to the blight in early September, but I caught it in time and took off all the trusses and ripened the toms indoors. They took a long time (some in the sun and some in a paper bag with a banana!) so we were actually eating our toms from August until about October which I suppose isn't bad! However I only had enough spare to make two batches of soup with and I'd like to have loads to freeze.

This year I can't sow any as I'm going away next month so will buy some ready grown little plants from the garden centre when I get back.

[Chicken6]

We must 'really' like tomatoes then as we just don't have enough.
Prob comes from being deprived of them when they cost about a dollar each out of season in the NZ supermarkets!
Or maybe the varieties we've grown are just a bit feeble, I can't remember their names but they're those little cherry tomatoes that you can conveniently just pop into your mouth like sweeties every time you visit the greenhouse ... I've just eaten about a million with my sandwich this lunch time.

Well here I have just spent 89p on 6 small salad tomato's and they tasted of nothing. I'm not worried about aving too many ( i don't think I could ever ever too many tomatos) it's just I don't want to find I haven't enough. I would have loads in the PT bu I also need the space for other crops. I was thinking I grew some in the back garden along a fence then I could stretch some plastic (odd bits rom PT cover) from the fence over the pants if there was too much rain.

So has anyone ever managed to harvest enough for freezing that lasted more or less the complete winter?

[Rosendula]

Lots and lots and not enough!

I used to just grow a few in my greenhouse, but that wasn't nearly enough. The last year I had my first opportunity to grow some on an allotment and I grew a full row, plus a few in my greenhouse. I still didn't have enough, but that was mainly because the allotment ones suffered blight. This year I plan to grow a few in the greenhouse, a couple of rows at the allotment, and hopefully at least a few in the garden. Growing in different places like that means that even if some suffer disease, it's unlikely they all will. If you have the space, I would recommend you try it that way. I'm doing the same with potatoes, too. When my allotment plants got blight last year, I always made sure I changed my clothes and washed my hands and arms after being near them and before going near my home-grown ones to try to prevent the spread of the disease. It may seem extreme, but it worked.

[contadino]

Somewhere between 200 and 260 Tombolino (cherry), and maybe 10 salad tomatoes.

Plenty for the summer, plus you'll have loads to sun-dry and both bottle and make passata to last you a good few months in the winter. If we had a greenhouse, I'd probably cut that down to maybe 150 Tombolino, and grow them throughout Spring & Autumn.

[moocher]

about 3/4 cherry in hanging baskets and a old coal scuttle.
and 8 moneymakers id like more but no greenhouse as yet.
last year i only got a handful of cherry toms as blight got the rest.

[becks77]

Last year I thought I had too many 53 was rather excessive, however I gave a load away to friends who were very grateful and planted up loads and still had to buy toms over the winter as we ran out in the freezer and fresh, I use a lot of toms in cooking and made lots of chutneys and passata, but not enough.

[Chicken6]

Last year I thought I had too many 53 was rather excessive, however I gave a load away to friends who were very grateful and planted up loads and still had to buy toms over the winter as we ran out in the freezer and fresh, I use a lot of toms in cooking and made lots of chutneys and passata, but not enough.

I guess that's what I'm looking to do.

My Grandad used to say that chutneys were to have in the winter instead of using fresh tomato. I also use lots of tomato in cooking too.

It would just be nice to be able to have a good harvest in the freezer.

[Davy]

i was just wondering if tomatoes get blight can you unlike potatoes plant tomatoes in that same bit of ground the following year? i know you can't with potatoes so as tomatoes are from the potato famliy are they the same? finally about what time of the year do you plant tomato plants outside in their final positions?

[Annpan]

Yes... if your tomatoes had blight you can't put potatoes in the same plot the following year, and vice versa.

We don't do outdoor tomatoes up here, I don't know if you'll be able to grow them in NI as the climates are very similar. I did some last year but they never ripened, all very green - but I do have a huge supply of green tomato chutney though

[Rosendula]

finally about what time of the year do you plant tomato plants outside in their final positions?

The advice on the back of my seed packets says to harden them off for a couple of weeks before planting out in May or the first half of June, after the last frosts (you have to be psychic). For northern areas, I think the general advice is to add a couple of weeks on to the seed packet instructions, but as Annpan says, that makes it harder to get them ripe as the weather turns cold again sooner than it does down south.

On the subject of blight, you need to keep your tomatoes as far away from the potatoes as possible - every year. That makes a 3-year crop rotation plan unworkable. I do a 4-year plan as in John Seymour's guide books. That way, whatever year it is I can have something growing in between them. I am also keeping records of where everything is growing on each patch, so that when the time comes for me to plant potatoes on the patch where the tomatoes were a couple of years ago, I can put them at the opposite end of that patch, so not quite in the same soil. It probably won't make an ounce of difference, but we can only try can't we.