Mr. Cuthbert – The Final Move

This week it’s time for the part entitled – The Final Move. It sounds very strategic, as if, at any moment, the cavalry might appear over the brow of the hill … bamboo canes aloft …but luckily apart from a slightly fierce sounding compost mix, all is actually quite peaceful and orderly in the greenhouse:

The Final Move

For the owner of a small greenhouse, I strongly advise culture in pots right through from the seedling stage to full maturity. Cultivation in indoor beds prepared either on the greenhouse floor or staging has certain advantages, but is not so suitable if you wish to grow a collection of other kinds of plants at the same times as your tomatoes. The ideal, of course, is to grow tomatoes in a house by themselves, but most people naturally prefer to try their hand at some other greenhouse plants as well, and, provided that these take second place to the tomatoes and the temperature and ventilation are adjusted to meet the needs of the latter, a “mixed” house can be successfully managed.

For the final potting, a richer compost is necessary. Half a bucketful of well-rotted, strawy horse-manure, mixed with two bucketfuls of soil and a sprinkling of lime, 2oz of bone meal and half an ounce of sulphate of potash, will provide a balanced and sustaining compost.

For the final move, 10- or 12-inch pots will be necessary, and once again, these should be throughly cleaned and sterilized beforehand. An inch or so of drainage crocks must be carefully arranged at the bottom of each pot, for the plants will later need a lot of water and, unless proper drainage is ensured, the soil will become sour and stagnant and the plants will suffer.

Now, over the crocks put an inch of fibre or old leaves and then an inch of compost, pressed down reasonably firmly. The pots are then ready to receive the plants.

The plants will be ready to be “potted on” into their final quarters when they are 6 to 9 inches high and preferably showing one flower truss. They should be given a good watering some hours before you begin re-potting.

Remove each plant carefully from its pot, keeping the ball and soil of roots intact. Place this “ball” in the centre of the pot, 2 inches or so below the rim. Hold the plant in position with one hand and, with the other, run compost round the roots, a little t a time and ramming it gently down as you go. At this stage the pot should not be filled higher than the level of the old ball of roots. This will allow room for future top-dressing and fresh root-growth.

Shade the newly potted plants for a few hours and keep the house closed for a few days. Water them throughly if they show signs of wilting. (Remember when watering, that a thorough soaking, whenever the plants look dry does far more good than a “sprinkle” at more regular intervals.)

At the time of potting or planting out, a stake or some other form of support must be inserted and the plant loosely secured from it. As the main stem grows upwards, periodical tying will be necessary – sometimes as frequently as two or three times a week. Generally speaking, a stout bamboo cane is the simplest form of support; but a popular alternative is to fix horizontal wires along the underside of the roof about 8 inches away from the glass. Lengths of soft twine are then secured to these wires and the lower end is either tied to a stake alongside each plant or loosely tied round the base of the tomato stem itself. If the plants are grown on staging, several of the horizontal roof wires, spaced a foot apart, will be necessary. If you use this method, then the tomatoes are treated rather like climbers and the tip of the plant is twisted gently round the vertical strand of twine as it grows.

My favourite line – ‘provided that these take second place to the tomatoes’ ! A man with his priorities in the right order!

Although I am not so sure what he would have to say about research which now claims crocks as a drainage aid don’t actually help – I think it would be dismissed with a Hrrrmph….