Tomatoes

Yes that is one of my favourites for growing outdoors on the plot.

It is a bush tomato and not that tall, but does get very heavy with the fruit on it.  I make a tripod of canes, plant into the centre and then run string around in a spiral to keep the branches up off the ground.  You might need to tie in branches as the plant grows.

I don’t restrict the plants in any way and let them make as many branches as they want.  The fruits grow in groups of 2-4 and mine just get pelleted chicken manure or Growmore depending on what I am feeding anything else at the time, but they are in soil rather than containers.  They respond well to both and I suspect would be just as happy with tomato food if they were in a pot.

If you are growing in containers or raised beds you might want to keep them a bit more under control, but I would suggest a cone shaped plant support rather than trying to pin them down to a single cane.  I’d pick a big pot with some weight to it as well so they don’t go over.

They grow outdoors on the plot.  I also do Crimson Crush and/or one of the other Crush blight resistant varieties as well.  It depends what seeds I have or have bought in the online seed sales.  I start them indoors in March, transfer to the greenhouse and then plant them out.

Burlesque will eventually get blight and usually a week or two before the Crush ones go down with it, but the fruit is generally big enough at that stage to pick and ripen indoors.  They are great for making sauce or pasatta.

Yes that is one of my favourites for growing outdoors on the plot.

Thank you so much for this great advice, I was wondering wether they could be grown outdoors or not, but I've got just the place for them as I've got a spare raised bed I can plant them into. Thank you!