Tomatoes:So you want to grow Tomatoes? 
or maybe Capsicums, Chillies and Eggplants? by Malcolm W. Campbell

The seeds have a natural germination inhibitor on them, which can be removed by placing the seed in the toe of an old nylon stocking and hanging it from a running hot-water tap for a few minutes, so that the tepid water removes the germination-inhibitor. This causes the sown seed to germinate uniformly and very quickly. Of course the seed will germinate if you don't treat it this way, but it takes longer and germination is more sporadic. Incidentally you may have some difficulty in getting F1 seed to germinate evenly, since some of them require very specific temperature regimes to germinate, which is another reason why they are generally sold as seedlings. If you have some difficulty determining what cultivars to grow, don't be dissuaded from trying some of the open pollinated or heirloom varieties, because trials have shown they frequently out yield the F1's. 'Mortgage Lifter' will average a yield 17 kgs of fruit on a single bush, where as even the best of the F1's such as 'Mighty Red' is more likely to average a yield around 12 kgs unless you go to a lot of extra effort with feeding them.

Sow your preferred seed onto a premium seed-sowing mixture or even pure vermiculite. Then sprinkle lightly with some of the seed-sowing mix to barely cover the seed, then tamp the mixture down with a flat board. The initial watering should be done by immersing your seed container into a pail of water that allows the water to move up the seed-raising profile by osmosis. The water level should be about one third of the height of the container and it takes about two minutes to saturate, then remove to drain. Don't water overhead even with a fine rose head sprinkler because it dislodges the seed. Of course after they germinate you can resume overhead watering with a fine mist jet, preferably in the morning or else fungal diseases can form from water-soaked leaves left overnight.

When the seedlings are about 50mm or 2" high they are best potted-on into 100mm or 4" pots of a premium potting media to harden-off. This is an important stage not to be sidelined if you want your Tomatoes, Capsicum and Eggplant to produce fruit quickly. The potting media or 'soil mixture' for these transitional pots is kept deficient in nutrients and in a warm place, preferably under the eaves on the north or eastern facing wall so that the plants are protected from frost, get the warmth from the sun-facing wall and under the eaves they don't get too much spring rain. Tomatoes can take plenty of water once the soil temperatures are rising rapidly, but in late winter and early spring you will find they don't like too much water when the potting media is too cold. They can easily collapse from the fungal disease "damp-off" if watered too much. This shows up as though someone has pinched the stem just above the soil. It's caused by humidity when the young plant is not yet in a strong stage of growth. It's common in poorly ventilated glasshouses, where you might be tempted to raise early season seedlings and exacerbated by poorly draining potting media. It's a rare occurrence if you buy any of the premium seed raising mixtures and premium potting media. Given that you use incredibly small amounts of the seed raising mixture to raise large numbers of seedlings and that you will fill at least 48 of the 100mm pots from one 22 litre bag of potting media, I find it's not worth trying to mix your own.

When your seedlings are about 200mm or 8" high with sturdy stems and struggling to come into flower, probably looking a little sickly or yellowing on the leaves dues to nutrient deficiency, then that's the time to plant them out into the favoured position in the vegetable garden.

If you live in one of those areas where spring seems to be skipped over and winter becomes summer in August or September, them transplant your Tomatoes in the late afternoon so that they stay turgid. It's a good idea to soak your whole pot into a seaweed extract just before planting and leave it there for a few minutes. This gives the seedling a mild nutrient fix and the alginates prove to be a great elixir, before the serious feeding starts. It's a bit like weaning heifer calves! Start feeding your Tomato plants after the second truss of fruit develops. To set fruit they need plenty of potassium in a balanced liquid water-soluble fertilizer such as the Richgro Soluble Tomato Food® with an N:P:K ratio of 17:10:17 plus trace elements or in the early part of the season feed with Hortico™ Aquasol with its N:P:K of 23:4:18 which will spur on growth when organic compounds in cold soils are not so readily available. The relatively high nitrogen content would only be warranted if you were gardening in a soil that was fairly impoverished or in containers where leaching would se a rapid loss anyhow. If you have a packet of the Yates Thrive® in your shed, which has an N:P:K of 27:5.5:5.9 you will need to add additional potassium to get the best from your Tomatoes. If you are using slow release fertilisers which rely upon soil temperature to release their compounds, you will need to apply fairly high concentrations, say 150 grams per square metre of a controlled-release fertilizer, such as Osmocote® or Flower Carpet Plant Food® which has an N:P:K ratio of 15:5.2:10 plus trace elements, because of the relatively slow release rates early in the season, when compared to liquid or water soluble fertilisers. Chemspray Oz-Gro Plus® is a 9 month slow release that releases its fertilizer when in contact with moisture rather than temperature, so it is ideal to use early in the season when soil temperatures are low. It has minimum N:P:K of 20:1.3:8.3 plus trace elements, so you would need to top dress your Tomatoes with extra Potassium sulphate as well. There are quite a few other slow release fertilizers on the market that perform equally well, but rely on soil temperatures above 10^oC to release their fertilizer. During cool times when soil temperatures are low they stop feeding your plants altogether and at high soil temperatures in excess of 25^oC their rate of discharge is greatly accelerated so that a 9 month slow release fertilizer will maybe only last 4 months. The slow release mechanism is usually a polymer or semi-permeable membrane through which the fertilizer passes when soil temperatures rise or when water is present. Controlled release fertilizers that release by soil temperature are Nitrophoska® Slow Release Fertilizer which is a four month release with an N:P:K ratio of 15:3.9:12.4 with trace elements and the Macrocote® Controlled Release Fertilizer "Outdoor Plus" by Defender which is a 9 month release with an N:P:K of 12:4.6:10 with trace elements and Cultisol™ by Attunga, which has an N:P:K of 10.5:12.6:27. While the Cultisol™ may seem to have a very high proportion of potassium, the Bass Liquid Potash™ has an N:P:K of 3.6:16.4:36.4, that will leave your Tomatoes gasping due to the high potassium, unless your vegetable garden is already well nourished! Of course you can add potassium in the form of the fairly cheap Sulphate of Potash which is Potassium Sulphate, at 41.5% potassium, if you are a big user of organic mulches, that are not totally composted. You see your soil may well become deficient in available potassium, due to the nitrogen draw-down. Quite briefly the available nitrogen in your soil can be depleted as tiny nitro-bacters in your soil continue to 'consume' available nitrogen as they break down raw compost into organic compounds and humus. Nitrogen and Potassium are taken up by Tomatoes at the same time, so by adding only potassium, your will soon experience deficiencies of other essential compounds, unless you brew a particularly potent compost. So keen organic gardeners who use lots of Blood and Bone or Blood Meal, need additions of potassium or Potash to get a balanced up-take by their Tomato, or Capsicum crops, because there is no potassium on blood meal products, unless it's been added as a non organic compound. Quite a few "Blood'n bone" products on the market today have nitrogen added as urea, to get the N levels up. So be cautious if you garden on clay soils where the double whammy of salt residues and high rates of evaporation could prove a problem. In areas where salinity is already a problem I have found Phostrogen® Soluble Plant Food with an N:P:K ratio of 10:4.4:22.5, has it's active agents in a form that leaves very little salt residue. The high K levels assist the Tomato trusses to develop rapidly, when applied at 4.5 grams per 9 litres and watered in during warm weather. The instructions on the packet alerted me to the fact that Phostrogen® can be applied at triple strength when the fourth truss of fruit sets and it sure made a difference to my Tomatoes last year! Phostrogen® also market a 'Double strength soluble Tomato Food', but it's not all that common in stores. It has an N:P:K ratio of 12.5:5.0:25.5, plus calcium to prevent Blossom End Rot as well as traces of magnesium and manganese, essential for good Tomato growth. As such it must be the most concentrated Tomato fertilizer, available to home gardeners at present.

One thing is for sure, a little fertilizer and often during the warm growth season is better than to force feed your plants once or twice a year. Remember also that the same fertilizers and cultural hints apply to the Capsicums, Chillies and Eggplants.

If your soil is fairly heavy, that is it's got lots of loam or clay in it and takes a while to drain away after its watered, then you will need to plant on 150mm or 6" mounds. If you garden on a sand dune or even freely draining soils then the mound need only be 25mm or 1" high, which is just to allow the odd flood, when you're distracted and forget to turn the tap off. In hot areas you will need to mulch at planting time, but in the cooler areas down south, leave the soil bare until day temperatures climb into the upper 20's. Then the sun can actually warm the soil, rather than cool it. Mulch by the way is any organic litter, not necessarily composted to provide nutrient, but rather to provide the roots are they grow with a cool root-run. You can even mulch with gravel or underfelt, jute sacking or newspaper. I must admit to be not being keen on newspaper in the garden. I take mine to the local recycle depot for cash!

When it comes to watering there are nearly as many options as there are ways to cook a Tomato. The cheapest option has to be to flood irrigate at intervals of several days to a week or so. Then comes the network of drippers with the two hour timer, that you turn on as you hurry out the gate on the way to work. Then for the really organised, is the dripper system with the seven day timer, that can be programmed to water while your on your annual leave. There are now soaker hoses, made from recycled rubber products that ooze water along the entire length of a hose that you bury into the mound where you planted your Tomatoes, Capsicums etc. The section from your tap and timer to the mound is assembled using non-porous poly-pipe and the soaker is attached at the point where the hose goes underground. These systems are ideal for short rows on flat ground but for long stretches it is difficult to get an even distribution of the water. You might argue that it's also difficult with poly-pipe too, but with the use of regulators and different diameters of pipe, even distribution in the hands of a professional irrigation installer is easily obtained.

I haven't mentioned misters because for most Tomato patches they cause a prolific spread of fungal diseases. I guess they may have a place for night watering in the arid areas, where humidity is not a problem. In general Tomatoes grow best from water applied to the soil, rather than from overhead watering, because that inhibits some of the activity of the bees and reduces the period of the day when pollination can take place.

There are some seasoned growers of Tomatoes who would not willingly lay down their trusty secateurs, if you were tell them that they don't need to stake or prune their Tomatoes or at least some of the cultivars don't need staking and pruning. For them it's a real buzz coming into the house with the intoxicating smell of Tomato sap on their fingers. There are at least three main groups of Tomatoes being bred these days, each with different growth habits and they are not all dependent upon pruning.

The indeterminates are those that require staking, because they develop a strong tip dominance and they generally cannot support their weight of fruit unless they are tethered. With the strong leaders that they develop, there is the need to remove the axillary shoots to foster more flower set. That is essentially all that pruning involves. The well known indeterminate cultivars in this group are 'Grosse Lisse', 'Mighty Red', 'Mortgage Lifter', 'Rouge de Marmande', 'Scorpio', 'Improved Apollo' and 'Riverdale Red'.

The determinates are that group which is becoming increasingly popular having been bred to resist tip dominance, they are quite happy to lie on the ground or grow as a mound without being staked. Because they do not have the strong tip dominance they set their fruit all at once, rather than staggered over a long season, so they need less pruning if any at all. The attraction for this group is that less pruning means less transfer and incidence of disease. Picking the fruit requires a bit more dexterity and the mice seem to be better fed when determinates are grown, but the incidence of sun-burnt fruit is very rare, due to the wholesome foliage cover the determinates develop. The bottom line is that some gardeners love the formal look of well pruned and sentinel-like staked Tomatoes, rather than the slovenly determinates! Popular determinate cultivars are the 'Roma' Egg Tomato, 'Mama's Delight', 'KY1', 'Superprize' and 'Floradade'.

The third group are the climbing vines, many of which are best grown on a trellis or weld mesh cylinder. These are mostly the tiny cherry-sized fruiting Tomatoes and the wild varieties from their native Peru. The more successful climbers are 'Cocktail Supreme', 'Cherry Cocktail', 'Peruvian Sugarlump', 'Gardener's Delight' and 'Mini Yellow Pear'.

Because you or your nursery grew your Tomatoes from seed, there is a temptation to collect the seed from a ripe Tomato for next year's crop. While you can do that, it is worth reminding you that it is a waste of your time to save the seed from F1 hybrids. If a particular Tomato cultivar is an F1 hybrid it will state so on the seed packet or more likely it will be one of those cultivars that you bought as a punnet of seedlings. That's because the F1 seed is much more expensive than open-pollinated seed, so it's usually sold as seedlings by the nurseries, to add value so they can recoup the high seed cost. You would have to be charged about $5.50 a packet for a small quantity of the F1 seed if it were available in packet lines. Since that is more than twice what you would pay for other Tomatoes, you can see why the F1's are sold as seedlings, where the seed cost is a small proportion of the total cost of the product.

The F1 hybrid means first filial generation of seed and the cultivars are raised from a controlled cross between two known parent Tomatoes, so that the progeny have great vigour and fruiting characteristics, but only the seed company or the company that holds the genetic rights, knows what the parent plants are. The progeny if grown from seed, will revert to their parent types are other wilder mutants, but seldom to anything that resembles the superior F1 cultivar. So saving seed from F1 hybrids is fairly pointless. On the other hand it makes good sense to save from superior varieties that are open pollinated. You may have grown a Tomato with particularly early fruit set or tasty fruits or a rich colour to the flesh and save the best fruits of these by all means. Leave the fruit on the vine to mature and that may require encasing it in a paper bag to keep the birds and mice away. Then cut it open to remove the seeds and spread them out on some absorbent tissue paper or newspaper in the shade to dry. When totally dry, the seeds left on the paper can be stored in a screw-top jar and left in a dark cupboard until next spring when you can wash the inhibitor from the seeds and sow then. Don't remove the inhibitor prior to storing though. Tomato seed can be stored at room temperature for about four years before viability starts to diminish and for about 8 years if stored in the crisper of your refrigerator which is about 2^oC. Hermetically sealed foil pouches that create a vacuum, after being impregnated with CO₂, will keep the seed for about 12 years and I've had the odd report from gardeners who swear they have kept it even longer. At least by sowing fresh seed you are assured of plenty that will germinate, but as the seed ages its viability diminishes, so less of it will germinate.