TOMATOES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21344, 19 November 1932, Page 9 (Supplement)

TOMATOES

HINTS FOR GROWERS The final planting out of tomatoes for the main crop should be completed during the present month. There are probably few plants grown that are more widely represented in the vegetable garden or whoso fruit is more in demand than that of the tomato. It seems but a few years ago that this fruit was unobtainable, or at least was a luxury, except during the summer, but it gained in popularity and increased in demand with extensive cultivation under glass. With the aid of importation from the Islands ripe fruit is piratically now obtainable at almost any season of tho year. The locally-grown product, however, is in almost every instance superior in flavour to the imported fruit; due no doubt to the latter being grown in more excessive heat, and having to be gathered in the green stute to enable them to arrive in a sound condition. They are, however, a useful addition to local-grown tomatoes as they assist to extend tho season when ripe fruit can be obtained. It is during the summer, when salads are most in demand, that well-grown and ripened tomatoes are most appreciated, and there are few garden soils in which they will not succoed, and in which space cannot be found to grow sufficient fruit for home requirements. A surprising quantity of fruit can bo grown upon a few plants when proper care is paid to their culture. The success attained, however, depends so much upon the method of treatment during growth that too much attention cannot be given to their requirements. CONDITION OF THE SOIL In the cultivation of tomatoes the object of every grower, whether simply grown for home consumption or for market purposes, is naturally to endeavour to obtain as many well-grown and ripened fruits as possible from each plant, and this is best attained by using every means to encourage fruit production from tho time the plants are placed in the soil until .1 full crop is produced. The amount of labour entailed in growing good crops of fruit depends in a great measure upon the condition of the soil in which they are grown. If planted in too rich soil the plants make rank luxuriant growth, entailing extra labour in thinning and removing lateral growth. The branches, too, are formed at greater distances apart than when growing- under more favourable conditions. REMOVAL OP LATERALS As soon as a bunch or two of the flowers has formed, all laterals or side shoots should be removed from time to time as they commence to grow, tho object being to confine the energies of the plants to the development of the fruit. By stopping in tho manner described tho flowers set more freely, resulting in larger and better bunches of fruits being formed along the whole length of the stem. Nearly the whole of these will properly mature and ripen. When a number of shoots are allowed to grow away unthinned or unstopped, although more bunches of fruit may form, only a small percentage will ripen, and these will not attain more than half the size of fruit that has received proper attention. For this reason far better rosults will bo obtained by confining tho plants to one or at most, two of the leading shoots.