Last week Mr.Cuthbert left us busy preparing the ground for our outdoor tomato plants. Now hopefully after a cup of tea (and I suspect for Mr.C a pipe, but that’s complete conjecture) we’re ready to learn what to do next…
Plants
Tomato plants are tender creatures and will not stand up to night frosts in the open unless they have been gradually brought on and properly hardened off. Don’t, therefore, be in a hurry to plant them out, unless you can give them some form of protection. My own advice is to delay planting until the last week of May in the South and Midlands, and until the first week in June in the North and Scotland. If you are the fortunate possessor of some barn-type cloches, then it is perfectly safe to put your plants out three weeks or even a month earlier.
Now, a word as to the plants themselves. The first – and most important – point is to tell your nurseryman that they are required for outdoor cultivation. This means that he will supply them ready hardened off for planting in the open. Unless you specify this, he may unwittingly supply you with tender young plants intended to be brought on under glass, and stock such as this will have little chance if put straight out in the open. Order you plants well in advance and take delivery of them a day or two before you are going to plant them out.
Many beginners are uncertain how to tell good plants from bad, so here are some points to watch. A healthy, hardened tomato plant should be nine to twelve inches high, preferably with the first flower truss already forming; the stem should be firm, sturdy and short-jointed (i.e. with the foliage ‘breaks’ fairly close together); the leaves should be a hard, dark green and free of all trace of blight or mildew. Avoid spindly, “leggy” plants with pale green foliage like the plague since this is a sure sign that they have not been properly hardened off and have been “drawn” in their seedling state.
What I enjoyed about this piece is the lovely juxtapostion of how the world changes; and how it doesn’t. There isn’t a single word of the advice above that has dated but… where oh where is the nurseryman? ..replaced by the meerkat-sellers every one? However in his absence I shall take instruction from myself on what kind of plants I want for next year; what I really want to achieve for the first time: short-jointed plants.
Next week, instruction on how to plant out.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I think Mr. Cuthbert is wrong to suggest that hardening-off makes tomato plants hardy. Any frost on tomato leaves will kill the leaf, not necessarily the plant unless it freezes everywhere on it. This is the same for tomato’s sibling potato and cousin peppers. My spud plants caught the late frost in May and survived but the leaves died where the frost had settled on them. So did my tomato plants this October, which killed the growing tips I wanted for cuttings but the rest of the plants survived until pulling-up time.
I think he’s right about hardening-off though; the plants do seem to acclimatise to outdoor life. And about last frosts; these can sneakily happen in May, as we saw this year.
I am enjoying reading his tips though. Good ol’ Mr. Cuthbert.
Yes, you’re right. May be he meant toughening up as opposed to technically hardy.
I can’t remember where I read it now – but recently it was someone saying that they now always put any plant ( that’s going to be planted out) in its pot, on the piece of ground where it’s going to be planted out/dug in – for at least a week beforehand. In this way the top of the plant gets used to the new conditions – whilst the roots are undisturbed and then when the top has grown accustomed to its microclimate surroundings – the plant can then be transplanted and the roots get used to their new enviroment, so that both parts of the plant aren’t under shock at the same time.
In addition it means that for a plant hardening off that will have tender foliage, so lots of stomata, and therefore lots of transpiration going on – with the drying effect of wind for the first time – it is not relying immediately on roots which may not immediately make good contact with the soil to provide them with a lot of water.
So as I say no idea where I came across that … but it made a lot of sense.
And on a completely different note I emailed you the Questions a little while ago- there’s no hurry at all. But I wanted to check you’d got them – as I’d hate you to wondering why I hadn’t sent them !
That does sound like a good method of hardening off, as you say different micro-climates exist depending on light, wind exposure. etc. I’ve never found this to be a problem though, I just put the plants in a fairly sheltered spot, or back inside it the weather turns nasty.
Ooops, I’m sorry to say that i haven’t received your e-mail; I was beginning to wonder…
I have spam filtering switched on, so it probably got deleted before i checked the trash folder. I’ll turn it off or a few days if you’d like to try again; or you can use my other address by removing one zero from the address I use here. I’ll try and get them done as soon as I can. 