"fourmations" wrote in message
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Dear all

I have no idea what yield to expect from my first tomato plants

I have planted 20 gardeners delight and 20 F1 inca (plum)
(which I expect will be excessive)

I dont really have a problem with having a massive yield
as I oven dry and freeze toms, and make buckets of pasta/pizza sauces
and I can always supply friends and family with the excess
I suppose its where to put them (no greenhouse)
I would have the room for a loads of those growbag size plastic growhouses

anyway next question,

I got a plastic growhouse in Lidl but its not that tall (about 3.5 foot)
Do the plants have to be a certain height?


Less than 3.5 ft tall would seem to be a good start.

Sorry niall couldn't resist that one.

More seriously if the width and length of this grow house
are in proportion to the height of 3.5 ft then you've got
around 32 too many plants in there.

At a guess around eight would be the maximum.

Don't throw any away, just plant them in in the garden
onece all danger of frost has passed. A growhosue that size is
probably more suited to raisng plants early IMO. Or growing
naturally smaller subjects.

I've never tried to grow toms in a sitauation with a 3.5 height
restriction, so I can only guess.

As soon as each stem touches the top cut them back. This will
encourage sides shoots from the next leaf node down, and these
will need to be trimmed at well. Left to their own devices, the
stems will bend and grow along the inside of the roof blocking
out all the light. Or if you've got any open ventilation
they will grow through that. (Thats the stems of eight plants.
40 plants doesn't bear thinking about)

You need nice healthy leaves on the plants to feed the fruit
but not so many as to block the light from others.

You'll have a better idea by this time next year in any case.

michael adams






many thanks in advance

niall