Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: Potty Plotty Lotty on April 09, 2016, 14:05
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I grow my tomatoes in 15L pots on the patio with reasonable success. To date I have filled the pots with growbag compost (Verve-the ones that contain peat I'm afraid).
Having switched from Verve multipurpose compost to Jack's Magic I am thinking more about the growing medium for my tomato (and pepper) plants.
Do you think there is much difference between using growbag compost or multipurpose? I appreciate that there will be a need for tomato feed once the fruits have set and maybe a general feed before this point.
Opinions will be gratefully received!
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I used to find that growbag compost was a more rough textured mix than multipurpose, but nowadays all composts seem to be like that :nowink:
I just use whatever is cheapest because I know they'll get fed regularly.
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Personally I use growbag compost in the belief (rightly or wrongly) that multipurpose compost contains more nitrigen fertiliser which you don't really want for tomatoes at first.
Why not try both. I bet you won't be able to tell the difference. :)
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I grow my tomatoes in the green re-usable growbags. Last year I did an experiment, 2 plants were grown in growbag compost, 2 in half growbag and half home-made and 2 in all home-made. There was no difference in yield whatsoever.
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I use 900m x 450mm x 150mm bags (like potato bags) filled with a mix of home made compost and leaf mould.
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Those sound like the ones I use Trikidiki - green with three holes in the top. I use them for strawberries too.
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Thanks everyone. Very helpful-particularly Oakridge's results.
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Those sound like the ones I use Trikidiki - green with three holes in the top. I use them for strawberries too.
I don't think they are, I bought them about four years ago and can't remember where I bought them as I was going to get some for my son-in-law. When I saw your post I did a search on 're-usable growbags' and it came up with the ones I think you are talking about. The ones I have are brown, I'm guestimating the dimensions as I can fit two down one the 6' side of my 8x6 and they are about twice as long as wide. They are completely open topped but have channels sown down each top edge that you can insert a cane into to give them more rigidity. I have seen them on ebay but they are asking £6 each plus £4 p&p. I didn't pay anything like that think it was three for £10.
I grow three plants in each, a couple of years back I grew three chillies in each with the tomatoes and they all seemed to do fine. I like the large surface area as I can plant the tomatoes lying down and cover the bottom of the stems with compost so they root from the stems, makes a huge root system and the first truss is then quite low so I can usually get an extra truss before I hit the roof.