With the sun comes the tomatoes. But there are many pitfalls.
– Tomatoes are just like us humans. If the plants don’t get food and the best conditions, it won’t be good at all, says Johnna Gilljam and compares a dying tomato plant to a flourishing one.
– This one needs a lot more love than it got.
It is possible to save – or re-educate, as Johnna Gilljam says – plants that have withered. One measure that usually helps is to put the tomato plant in a larger pot with more soil so the tomatoes can form the roots they need to grow.
The right root size for the right pot
If you want fast-growing tomato plants, you should avoid putting new small plants in excessively large pots, because the roots must first adapt to the pot.
– The tomato plants want the right root size for the right pot, says Johnna Gilljam.
According to Gilljam, there are divided opinions on whether to prune the tomato plant or not. She herself avoids it, but there is neither right nor wrong.
The leaves, on the other hand, should be picked late in autumn.
– It’s about making it airy and the plant believing that the tomatoes will soon be ready. Then it produces more tomatoes instead of more leaf mass.
Urinary incontinence
How many tomatoes or leaves you get depends. According to Johnna Gilljam, manure can be good, but there are better tricks.
– Without a doubt, I recommend gold water, that is, urine.
Then there are many people who say: but God I’m going to eat them here, I can’t pee on them, can I?
– You can think so. But you can certainly do that, and you don’t water the tomato itself, but the soil. It’s a real cycle!
If the cold comes again, there is one important thing to think about.
– Tomatoes cannot withstand frost. If you have them outside, you should protect them in some way.
A common mistake is also to expose newly planted tomatoes to the sun, but if they get too much sun at an early stage, the plant risks wilting.