Growing tomatoes in Auckland!!

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Jase2985

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#1613249 17-Aug-2016 14:21

mattyb:

Jase2985:

No help to you but i grow mine in a greenhouse and its humid as in there. Gets watered every 3 days for 30 minutes. ive never had an issue with what you have mentioned though. My cheery tomato plants were about 5m tall (i grew them to the roof then sideways across the top of the green house, and my standard tomatoes were about 4m tall (same deal).

I get about about 30kg's of tomatoes off 6 regular plants and 4 cherry plants.

Do you grow them in the ground or in containers? Anything in particular you do with the soil?

in the ground in beds in the greenhouse. i grow them from seeds.

nothing much to the ground, my own compost, some sheet pallets and some blood and bone, and then some liquid tomato food and some granular stuff as they start growing.

I have a irrigation timer in the green house the goes for 30mins every 2nd or 3rd day (can remember which) at 6am in the morning, and all the head are about 20cm from the ground so they spray the bottoms of everything in there.

timmmay

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#1613419 17-Aug-2016 19:42

mattyb:

Yes, what sprays do you use? And do you also use a copper spray as well as the bug spray? I'm not bothered about not organic - easy enough to wash everything off before eating - a small price to pay for the great taste.

In this order:

Soap spray (drowns aphids, not very effective if you have many)
Pyrethryn + neem oil (can deter minor infestations)
Vectobak (kills those little mites that breed in the soil, eat roots, then turn into annoying little flying bugs)
Confidor (quite effective aphid control)
Agrimec (heavy duty, keeps mites off tomatoes)

You MUST read the label and pay attention to the withholding period. Some are fine, some you have to wait 3-4 days, and I expect you want to wash things pretty well after using them. The agrimec (from memory) you need to wear gloves and a breathing mask - those green shield beetles are tough to kill, but this stuff keeps them away and gets rid of them if they appear.

mdav056

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#1613433 17-Aug-2016 20:05

I grow one grafted plant in the same garden every year, always the tiny variety, and never have a problem at all -- get many kilos of the one plant -- with lots of stakes and ties.. I throw some garden compost on the area sometime during the winter usually, and maybe empty one lot of worm farm stuff on it, and water them for 10 mina about once every 3 days when it's dry. Dunno why people are having problems -- though, once, I did try to grow a lot of non-grafted ones, and the whole lot keeled over with blight. *I* think that the grafted varieties are the way to go, seems like they are stronger and more resistant.

gml

lokeynz

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#1613446 17-Aug-2016 20:47

I've been growing 1-2 plants in the same spot each year and got hit with blight for the first time last year after a spell of wet weather.
I really don't want to move them so had a search and came across: http://blog.thompson-morgan.com/tomato-mountain-magic-f1-hybrid-vegetable-of-the-year-2016/

I couldn't find these in NZ and importing a small quantity isn't viable if obtaining the legally required 'phytosanitary certificate'.
Could be a good sales opportunity for a local seed company.

openmedia

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#1613487 17-Aug-2016 22:28

I tend to grow 6-8 plants in the ground, 2-3 hanging baskets, plus tubs, all different varieties. In addition we get random plants appear, some years upto 30 plans in total.

Watering we use rainwater, never tap water. Plus food 1-2 times a month. We use some of our compost plus tomato mix to kick things off.

This is North West Auckland and we generally get many many KG of tomatoes.

Generally known online as OpenMedia, now working for Red Hat APAC as a Technology Evangelist and Portfolio Architect. Still playing with MythTV and digital media on the side.

MadEngineer

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#1613492 17-Aug-2016 22:39

Best crop of tomatoes we had was from plants that cropped up from the seeds of a supermarket tomato that had expired and was left to rot into our garden.

You're not on Atlantis anymore, Duncan Idaho.

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JayADee

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#1613513 18-Aug-2016 05:48

I've grown them in the same spot twice in a row in the past but generally I rotate everything. We use compost, blood and bone, seaweed occasionally and Epsom salt and once in a while fertiliser. When we had chickens we used their coop hay. We have some heavy feeders like asparagus.

MikeAqua

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#1613815 18-Aug-2016 16:19

timmmay:

mattyb:

Yes, what sprays do you use? And do you also use a copper spray as well as the bug spray? I'm not bothered about not organic - easy enough to wash everything off before eating - a small price to pay for the great taste.

In this order:

Soap spray (drowns aphids, not very effective if you have many)
Pyrethryn + neem oil (can deter minor infestations)
Vectobak (kills those little mites that breed in the soil, eat roots, then turn into annoying little flying bugs)
Confidor (quite effective aphid control)
Agrimec (heavy duty, keeps mites off tomatoes)
You MUST read the label and pay attention to the withholding period. Some are fine, some you have to wait 3-4 days, and I expect you want to wash things pretty well after using them. The agrimec (from memory) you need to wear gloves and a breathing mask - those green shield beetles are tough to kill, but this stuff keeps them away and gets rid of them if they appear.

It's generally a good idea to cover your skin and eyes and wear a respirator. Non-toxic sprays can still be irritating or cause allergic reactions to develop.

Mike

Jase2985

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#1613871 18-Aug-2016 17:16

I just planted my tomato seeds, along with all the other things im planning on growing early this season.

jmh

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#1615503 22-Aug-2016 09:43

The UV from the sun is supposed to reduce mold and fungus spores, so it may be that you need to move them to a sunnier spot. Also, you need to feed them generously once they are flowering.

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