Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat

Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: Willow_Warren on May 15, 2012, 10:27

Title: Growing Tomatoes in a windy garden!
Post by: Willow_Warren on May 15, 2012, 10:27
Our garden is windy and I mean really windy, do people know if having such windy conditions will affect my tomato growth/ripening?

I had just 2 tomato plants last year, one was a Tumbling Tom, which did reasonably well despite being in quite a little pot, but did occassionally get toppled over by the wind.

The other one was a cordon variety, I can't remember exactly which type, again was planted in  pot, but a reasonable sized one. But the biggest problem I had was that when I got home from work I found that it had more often that not fallen over!  Would this have affected it's productivity?

I've got a lot more tomatoes this year, all brought on from seed (10 x sungold, 6 x plum and 3 x beef - some of which I will be giving away), and I really willing them to do well!  I don't have a green house and can't really warrent the money in buying one (esp since we rent out house!).

Will my tomatoes be punished by the wind again or was last years poor performance just back luck... (well maybe not luck but something other than the wind!)

Thanks

Hannah :)
Title: Re: Growing Tomatoes in a windy garden!
Post by: m1ckz on May 15, 2012, 10:39
put a stake in the ground
Title: Re: Growing Tomatoes in a windy garden!
Post by: Willow_Warren on May 15, 2012, 10:59
It was the whole pot which was blowing over!

Perhaps I should dig some more of the veg patch and stick them in there - with a good stake? (been reading the thread just lower down!) .

Oh my this gardening thing is stress full!

H  :tongue2:
Title: Re: Growing Tomatoes in a windy garden!
Post by: mumofstig on May 15, 2012, 11:15
or can the pots goin front of a fence so you can tie the canes up?
Title: Re: Growing Tomatoes in a windy garden!
Post by: angelavdavis on May 15, 2012, 11:34
Is there no way you can create some sort of shelter or barrier against the wind?  You can buy  special windbreak fabrics (http://www.gardening-naturally.com/acatalog/Windbreak_Shade_Netting.html) that you can attach to canes or posts to give some shelter.  

Our allotment site faces the sea and many people use it to provide some shelter on their plots.  It is not just the wind blowing stuff over that is the problem, things get dehydrated by the wind and get windburn so protecting against it can help enormously.

Actually planting things in the soil will help.
Title: Re: Growing Tomatoes in a windy garden!
Post by: galen on May 15, 2012, 11:41
or can the pots goin front of a fence so you can tie the canes up?

In my previous garden (which was in a wind funnel) that's what we used to do - attach the canes to the wall in our instance at bottom, middle and top and also connect each cane / pot (4 in total) to each other
Title: Re: Growing Tomatoes in a windy garden!
Post by: mcd on May 15, 2012, 14:14
put a stake in the ground

hehe. wild west.
Title: Re: Growing Tomatoes in a windy garden!
Post by: mrs mud on May 15, 2012, 14:56
Wind...tell me about it ! we live on an exposed hill just a few metres from the sea.  We get the full force of it coming down the Irish Sea heading straight for us, I love it  :)

My advice...get heavy clay pots or put broken bricks in the bottom, and canes to stop the plants snapping...and get strong pegs or your washing ends up all over the village  ;)
Title: Re: Growing Tomatoes in a windy garden!
Post by: Willow_Warren on May 15, 2012, 15:19
Wind...tell me about it ! we live on an exposed hill just a few metres from the sea.  We get the full force of it coming down the Irish Sea heading straight for us, I love it  :)

My advice...get heavy clay pots or put broken bricks in the bottom, and canes to stop the plants snapping...and get strong pegs or your washing ends up all over the village  ;)

Broken bricks, now I've dug enough of them out of the veg patch  :lol:

We are on washing line number two, the first one didn't last 12 months, and some super grippy pegs  :D