You cannot grow plants with seeds taken from Hybrid tomatoes however, see the comments section for an explanation of why.

Preparations: -

• Use ripe, reasonably fresh seed that has been stored in a cool dry place
• Use a proper seed compost for best results, a loam based seed compost is generally the best
• Maintain a good level of cleanliness both of the compost (keep in sealed bags) and of the seed trays
• Fill the seed trays to within 1/2″ of the top rim by pressing in your seed compost, level it off and firm it down by hand
• Mark the tray if necessary so you know what you have planted
• Moisten the compost before starting to sow so that it is exactly that moist, not dry or waterlogged
• Push the seeds into the compost to a depth equal to their diameter or thereabouts, tweezers might help with this process.
• Don’t sow everything at once stagger over a week or two to give you plants at different stages of development to give yourself some options for a longer growing period
• Make sure the seed is lightly covered, then water in with a fine mist of water from a sprayer.
• As with watering tomato plants you need to maintain a watering program that ensures the seeds don’t end up dried out or waterlogged

That is pretty much it, you can help the seeds along by covering with a sheet of white paper and a piece of glass or slipping the seed tray into a polythene bag to help retain moisture. The paper stops the condensation going straight into the seed compost.

After 2 – 3 weeks the seedlings should be large enough to handle without damage and should then be transplanted, using tweezers or a thin plastic or wooden strip with a V notched out to prise out the root ball. Try not to handle the stem, hold the plant by the first leaf.

Use a dibber to make a small hole in the compost and put 2 to 3 seedlings in a 3″ pot ready to grow on. Leave them now to grow on until large enough for planting in the ground or some kind of container, vine tomatoes usually do best for the final stage if they are planted 2 or 3 to a 40L grow bag or 1 per 12″ pot, other than that of course you can prepare the soil and plant your tomatoes in the the ground and for short summer regions this should probably be in a greenhouse.

Remember before final planting check the plants over and discard any that are weak, stunted, distorted or where the leaves are pale or mottled, these are the ones most susceptible to disease and liable to failure at the final stage.

*Top Tip* the ideal germination temperature for tomatoes is 16C (61F)

When choosing, one of the most over riding considerations to take into account is what they are going to taste like, after all when you are growing tomatoes at home that is one of the primary reasons for doing so, otherwise you may as well go and get the plastic ones from the supermarket. It’s quite difficult to recommend a variety for taste because everyone’s taste is different but what a lot of people opt for are the Heirloom varieties, mainly because they are as the name suggests an older and more traditional type of tomato which are full of flavour but may not have some of the more modern characteristics built in such as disease resistance.

Talking about disease resistance and to help ensure that you actually get some lovely fruit from your tomato plant it is a good idea to pick a tomato type that has a reasonable level of resistance to disease, especially if you have had trouble in this direction in the past. Check out the seed packets and make sure that they have a natural resistance to fusarium wilt and verticillium, these are two of the most common tomato diseases that they can get from the ground.

How much space you have will determine whether you can go for a determinate or indeterminate variety, the determinate variety as the name suggests grows to a limited size usually a couple of feet to maybe three feet in height then they stop. The indeterminate type are the vine tomatoes and they will just keep going unless you prune them. I actually think that the vine type are better in smaller spaces because you can control them to a size you want and train them where you want them to go whereas with the bush tomato plants they are what they are.

Also the vine plants continue to grow fruit over a longer period as the fruit of each truss ripens. The determinate (bush) variety on the other hand tend to ripen all at once over a relatively short period.

Unless you have a greenhouse the time the fruit takes to mature becomes important, if you are going to start to see frost at the beginning of October you need to be all done by then. So it is better to go for early maturing varieties in this case.

Something like Sun Gold will mature in 65 days or so and are indeterminate so lots of fruit over a longer period.

Beef tomatoes are large and are great for a burger but they do take longer to ripen so you either have to have a long summer or a greenhouse for growing these so that you can protect them from overnight frosts.

At the end of the day tomato selection is a matter of preference and as long as you actually end up with tomatoes that you like the taste of then the job is done, so make sure you take into account these factors and you will be sure to soon be enjoying lots of lovely ripe tomatoes.

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Vine tomatoes are also known as indeterminate tomatoes or sometimes cordon tomatoes. These are the varieties that need to be pruned in order to limit the growth to a central stem consisting of around 4 to 6 trusses.

This is achieved by pinching out or pruning the side shoots and then, when there are the required amount of trusses, the main stem is cropped off at the top. If you don’t do this then you will end up with an indeterminate amount of growth with lots of small fruit that is unlikely to ripen. The plants will also be prone to problems as the side shoots will run along the ground where they can pick up and are likely to contract disease.

Another way of controlling the growth of these plants is to cultivate them in pots or grow bags, but as one would expect growing in containers is a little more labour intensive particularly when it comes to a watering system.

Bush tomatoes are the alternative tomato plant and are known as determinate because their growth is self limiting and as the name suggests are bush like in appearance. The main disadvantage with this type of plant is that they tend to produce all their fruit within a very short time frame producing a short lived glut of tomatoes. Not great for the home gardener as you can end up with lots of tomatoes you cannot use fresh and have to turn to ways of preserving the fruit such as making chutney for instance.

For this reason many home gardeners tend to stick to the vine tomatoes that fruit regularly over the whole season, particularly when they have a reasonably long summer period.

Visit Growing Red Tomatoes for more tips and advice on tomato growing in a greenhouse and to get access to expert advice that could double or triple the size of your crop of tomatoes.

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