Savona Technical Details

* Fatty acid non toxic insecticide
* Safe alternative to chemical pesticides
* “Effective against mealybugs, whitefly and aphids”
* 1 bottle will cover 500 sq.m
* Simply dilute with water for application

One of the most common tomato pests is whitefly, recognised by their white wings and yellow body. They attach their eggs to the underside of the tomato leaves typically on the ones with the shortest stalks. The eggs look yellow when first deposited, but then turn a brownish colour as they mature. When hatched the whitefly feed on the foliage of the plant.

Initial signs are a dewey secretion and the presence of a mould growth. The plant is affected by irregular ripening of the fruit and the sooty mould referred to earlier that leaves the plant looking generally a little sick. You can expect the secretion to attract other pests as well, an unfortunate side affect, ants and wasps both get attracted by the secretion.

The normal productive cycle of whitefly is between 15 to 30 days so you need to check and retreat the plants over this period to make sure you have taken care of the problem fully. While they are active you will need to be spraying at least once a week.

A simple and effective way to kill whitefly is to make a mix of one part liquid soap (insecticidal if you can get it) and four parts water, then to use a plastic spray bottle to apply the soapy solution to the whole plant, paying particular attention to the underside of the leaves.

Other more drastic alternatives are to use either a deltamethrin dust or permethrin dust, but I would try the Savona or the soap solution first.

Whichever option you select, the first decision you need to make is whether you go for a determinate type plant (bush tomatoes) or an indeterminate type plant (vine tomatoes).

The most significant difference between the two is how the fruit ripens, determinate type plants provide the fruit over a shorter period so you end up with a lot of fruit pretty much all at the same, which is fine if you are into preserving and don’t necessarily want fresh tomatoes over a long period, for example sun dried tomatoes are wonderful to eat and are a great meat substitute in a vegetarian dish.

If on the other hand you are growing tomatoes for a fresh supply to go with your cooking or in your salads, then you are probably going to be better off with vine tomatoes. What happens with vine plants is that as they grow they develop fruit producing trusses from the bottom up. The bottom trusses are the first to produce fruit, as you would expect, so as you pick fruit from these the next truss moves to maturity and so on. As you can see then, the plant delivers its fruit over a relatively long period of time as each truss reaches maturity in turn.

You decide how many trusses the plant has through pruning and based on the length of your growing season, obviously you need enough time for the fruit on the later trusses that grow to ripen while there is still sunshine. A good rule of thumb is to allow about 6 trusses to develop if you have a good climate or a greenhouse and 4 trusses for a short growing season outdoors.

Some varieties will take longer to ripen, for instance Beefsteaks take about 90 days, so often cannot be grown without a greenhouse available, unless of course you live in a warm climate where you have a long summer season.

Beefsteak tomatoes can take 90 days to mature

There are so many different tomato varieties available, approaching 700 in reallity, so it is very difficult to say what will or won’t work for you where you are. A way of overcoming that problem is to visit your local garden center or market and see what tomato plants they are offering for sale, these can then be matched to your broad requirements.

You know the difference between determinate and indeterminate now, so that is your start point, but don’t be shy ask questions of the staff and tell them what you are looking for so they can make recommendations. This is probably the easiest way to begin with for making sure you get the right plant to grow in your region of the world. To give you a few additional ideas on what you need to consider there are a few more pointers below to help you along the way.

If you want to go for flavour, flavour and more flavour, then you should probably select heirloom tomatoes. This may cause a problem straight away as these are the old strains of tomato that have typically been maintained by the amateur gardening fraternity, so this means you may have to grow them from seed, contrary to my earlier suggestion, unless you get lucky and find a garden centre with a select few that they have started on behalf of their customers. A couple of the more common Heirlooms are ‘Cherokee Purple’ and ‘Brandywine’.

You could go for a variety that has better disease resistance, these are referred to as Hybrid Tomatoes and is the category that you will find Beefsteak tomatoes fit into.

Then you have the Plum Tomato which have lots of meat and not much seed, these are the core cooking tomatoes for pasta sauces and cooking in general. Roma is probably one of the best known of these.

Another choice is the dwarf varieties like cherry tomatoes, great for a small space or garden and very tasty in small packages. Sun Gold is a good example and it matures relatively quickly, in the region of 60 days.

Of course there are the Standard tomatoes such as Better Boy or Celebrity, these sit in size between the beefsteak and the dwarf varieties and form the staple part of many a nice summer salad. They tend to have a shorter maturity period of say around 65 to 70 days because they are smaller, which means you can get them ripened off more easily before the summer ends.

So take your time, decide what you want from your tomato planting then go seek out the best plants for where you live in the world and understand that if you move and go live somewhere else you may need to go through this whole process again. Good luck.

Assuming you have got your plants planted, whether that is in the soil or in some sort of container, and remembering to make sure that you do not put them in too early which would risk exposure to frost (not good), you will need to start thinking about ongoing care.

Bush type tomatoes (determinate tomato plants) grow to a set size and don’t really need any staking or pruning.

Vine plants (indeterminate tomato plants) on the other hand will need support and there are many ways of supporting them. A popular method is to use tomato cages, but using stakes or string is equally effective. Whatever way you choose make sure that the individual trusses are properly supported as the plant grows and take off any side shoots that appear, especially near the ground, to keep the growth under control and direct all the nutrients and water to the fruit bearing trusses.

Once the plant has developed 4 to 6 trusses the main stem should be pinched off about 2 leaves above the top truss. The 4 to 6 rule really depends on your available growing season and type of plant. For example in the UK you should probably only allow 4 trusses if planting outdoors but you will probably be OK with 6 trusses if greenhouse growing. Elsewhere in the world where you potentially have a better climate you may get away with more trusses outdoors, this is really a judgment call which needs to made based on climate and the length of your growing season.

Watering is very important, you need to set up a regime that ensures your plants are never dried out but equally important they should not be saturated either. Pots and or growbags tend to need more watering as they can dry out more quickly than if you have planted in the ground, 2 or 3 times a day is recommended or you can make use of an automatic watering system.

Feeding tomatoes is less important for plants in the soil, especially if the ground has been properly prepared but again if the plants are in pots or growbags they will benefit from regular feeding.

Its best to use a formulated tomato feed and to work with the instructions on the bottle for feeding. As a rule of thumb once or twice a week is good depending on the feed you use. If you prefer to feed twice a week and this contradicts the instructions on your chosen feed you can, for example, half the dose and deliver the same amount of feed but applying it twice instead of once. It’s really up to you and you will see from the results whether that works better in your environment, remembering of course not to exceed the recommended amount on the instructions.

If you are just starting don’t be scared to experiment and treat 1/2 your crop one way and the other 1/2 another way to find out what works best. As soon as you notice a difference you can adjust your regime to the best method.

A final tip on how to pollinate tomatoes, when the flowers are on the plants they tend to pollinate themselves with no problem, but it doesn’t hurt to help them along with a little bit of gentle shaking to dislodge the pollen, particularly if they are inside a greenhouse.

• Too much nitrogen
• Limey or sandy soil conditions
• Variable moisture content accentuated by extremely dry or wet weather conditions

The video below includes a little information on blossom end rot with pictures of what it looks like in case you are not sure. There are other subjects covered in the video for other gardening problems but the blossom end rot is one of the first covered.

All the conditions are fairly easily taken care of, nitrogen comes from the feed, compost or perhaps a mulch you have used so clearly if you are having problems with your tomatoes and suspect this to be the cause you need to moderate any supplementary feeding reducing the amount of feeding you do or the strength of  the solution. If a mulch is the problem then change the type to one that does not provide nitrogen, plastic or newspaper are good options.

If your soil has a lot of lime or sand in it then you could consider using containers or growbags, alternatively you could just take a lot more care over the soil preparation and get a lot more well rotted compost into the soil to combat its natural condition.

Watering needs to be done consistently and regularly, I would suggest 2 or 3 times a day unless of course the weather has been extremely wet in which case you probably need to stop watering completely until things get a little dryer. If you tend to experience this type of weather you should pay special attention to your soil preparation to make sure you have a situation where the soil drains easily. The objective when watering is to make sure the soil is always moist but not completely saturated as this prevents air gaining access to the plant roots.

You may also want to consider a watering system to make sure you can meter the amount of water your plants get. The system on the left is about the best you can get in the States and although the reviews on it have highlighted a couple of minor irritations it does the job and makes sure that your plants are watered consistently.

The system available in the UK has had mostly 5 star reviews but did get one very bad review, I suppose this could have been a Friday afternoon production, but mostly the people who bought it were more than happy.

I have to be honest I use the old fashioned watering can for my plants and they are fine, but if you have a busy lifestyle and do not always have the time to water your plants then a watering system for you is a must have.

Tomato plants are one of the easiest and most popular vine plants to grow but, as with all homegrown vegetables and fruits, it pays to do your homework up front to make sure you can successfully grow your own tomatoes or any other vegetables. Selecting the right location and using the right soil or compost mix will set you on your way to successful tomato crops.

One of the best options available to people with small gardens that will still allow them to grow a few tomato plants and enjoy the satisfaction of eating fresh homegrown tomatoes is to use a hanging planter, the planter can be hung in any convenient location, remembering of course that tomato plants need plenty of sun and plenty of water.

The main benefit of using a hanger in a small garden is that you need very little space in which to hang it and instead of spreading out to take up a large area they tend to hang straight down and occupy vertical space rather than horizontal space. So plenty of scope for the fruit to grow but in a long vertical line.

Other benefits are that you can clip the end of the plant to make sure there is no contact with the ground and therefore less chance of disease. There will naturally be good air movement around and through the plant, again good for keeping disease at bay.

The downside is that the hanging planter will need frequent watering, the fact that the soil is suspended in the air and in sunlight for most of the day means that it is bound to dry out more quickly than some other tomato growing options.

A great way of dealing with this is to employ the use of a plant watering system, particularly useful for this method of growing tomato plants. The main benefit is that it removes the need to lift heavy watering cans up to water the planter or as some people do lowering the planter down to water, not a good idea. Too much risk of damaging your plants and you still have to lift the planter back up after watering and now its full of water so heavier as well.

There are plenty of watering systems available that you can easily purchase from gardening centers, I would suggest a micro system for this type of planting as it is lightweight and can be controlled with a built in timer.

Visit Grow a Tomato for great tips on tomato growing and to gain access to some expert advice.

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