TOMATO CULTURE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21396, 20 October 1934, Page 10 (Supplement)

TOMATO CULTURE

to take out a hole eighteen inches square and fill in with some good loam, or old turf chopped up roughly. The whole aim in planting is to create as little disturbance as possible to the root system. Staking be seen to at the same time. A strong stake to each plant or, what is even better, a system of light canes tied to wires strained between posts. The. weight of a tomato plant in bearing is considerable, and when the additional strain of wind is imposed, there is a danger of the plants collapsing. The ties at the outset should be generous' enough to allow for future expansion of the stem. It will increase greatly in girth, and examining and cutting away any ties that are constricting and impeding the flow of sap should be a regular praotice.

Lateral growths are removed regularly as soon as large enough to be rubbed out; The plants should have been sprayed a week before planting out, and when growth has started freely a spraying every ten days is a good preventive of blight, . SOIL EXHAUSTION CROPPING AND FEEDING It has been shown that growing plants take up certain substances from the soil in a soluble condition, and these substances, which are called active constituents, exist in the soil in small quantities only. If the land is continually cropped, therefore, and no means is taken to restore the substances removed in the crops, the soil gradually becomes exhausted and the land loses its fertility. In nature this does not happen,. for in forests the constituents of the soil aro renewed by the decay of falling leaves, branches and trunks, and where roam the food in some proportion is returned to the soil. The land must be regarded by the gardener as a bank in which he has opened an account. If he continually draws cheques on the bank, and makes no fresh deposits to meet the drain, he will sooner or later come to the end of his capital. The same argument applies to the soil, the crops representing the cheques and manure the deposits. One often sees gardeners take away crops year after year, and do little to make up for the heavy drain on the land; and then after a time get very small crops, for the simple reason that more has been taken out of the land than has been returned by means of manure. Exhaustion may, in certain instances, be partly prevented by rest and proper cultivation, as,' for instance, when the land is dug up in order that the dormant constituents may become active; or when ground js allowed to remain fallow. A soil may contain in excels all the necessary constituents of plant growth except one, and if that one is supplied artificially the fertility of the soil is assured. This is known as the "law of the minimum," The application of the one deficient substance shows tfie principle of special manures; but it also snows the necessity of an acourate knowledge of plant life, in order to determine what ought to be the exaet composition of the artificial manure the planter proposes to make use of. The indiscriminate use of these manures frequently does harm to the soil, without increasing the crops. As a general rule the only constituents that are deficient in the soil are nitrogen, potash, lime and phosphorus, but other constituents may be either absent or in some form not available to the plants*

STAKING AND SPRAYING Outdoor tomatoes are not a speculative crop if sound cultural methods are adopted. Good crops may be grown in the garden without the aid of windbreaks or shelter, but there is no doubt that if the position can be chosen in the shelter of a hedge or fence, and yet exposed to the lull sunshine, an earlier ripening crop will result. Tomatoes are gross feeders and nothing in the way of manure seems to coino amiss to them. In spite of that fact, it is never wise to allow the roots to run riot in a mass of heavily manured soil. The greatest need for feeding is after the first fruits have set. A too rich soil to start with will have a tendency to the production of over luxuriant foliage, and if the roots are kept somewhat under control it will be an easy matter to stimulate the plants when they are carrying a crop with the aid of liquid manures and fertilisers, when the greatest strain is put upon the resources of the soil, which is from the time the first fruits have plumped up onward. The best-method of campaign in the case of the garden being composed of heavy clays or hungry sandy soils, is