I have grown tomatoes for a long time.  I have to be honest, although I do get a good amount of tomoatoes, I am guilty of planting my young tomato plants and leaving them to it, just water and a little feed here and there.  I am a busy girl, what can I say.  So I thought it about time I grow up and take charge of my responsibilites and really put some effort into producing some good quality toms.

Here are some simple ways of looking after your tomatoes to increase your crop of yummy tomatoes...

1.  Choose a bright, airy spot. Plant tomatoes where they will get at least 10 hours of light in the summer.  And leave  room between the plants for air to circulate.

2. Rotate even a little. Alternate your tomato bed between even just two spots and reduce the risk of diseases     like blight.

3.  Pass up overgrown transplants When buying tomato seedlingsbe aware of lush green shoots which have poor root    systems.  They will linguish for weeks before growing.

4. Bury the stems Plant your tomato seedlings up to the first true leaves.  New roots will quickly sprout on  the stems.  More roots mean more fruits.  And we like more fruits!

5.Water deeply but infrequently. Soak your tomato plants once a week, or every five days over the summer.  Water directly  on the soil and not on the leaves.

6. Pinch the suckers. Prune off these non-fruiting branches.  This drirects the tomato plants energy into growing   bigger and better.

7. Stake them high. Use 6 foot stakes so to make the plants stable from the beginning.

8. Add compost & trim While the first fruit is ripening, encourage new growth and continued fruit set by    scratching compost around the stem and trim some of the upper leaves.

9. Plant again 3 weeks after you plant tomatoes in your garden, plant some more so you dont have all the  juicy tomatoes coming at once.

10.  Pick ripe but not dead ripe    Pick when the

Here it is. My first blog. And I am excited. But where do I start!

There is so much to do and so many decisions to make.. fonts, color schemes, images, layout, pages and that just the non techy stuff!!

So with my head spinning with all the things I need to do I thought I would take my mind off things for a few minutes and tell you about me!  I am a member of the Quality Garden Supplies team and the guys in the office thought it a great idea that I create a Blog for our website.  After all I was the only one in the office going wild with excitement about my new house, how I am going to become a self-sufficient, jam making, home maker with my little cottage in the country which for the benefit of my new blog I will call the QGS Cottage. All the plans I have made and now out loud which means there is no going back, everyone in the office knows! I mean I would look a fool if I didn't carry them out!

I moved into the Cottage in December and so now with Christmas out of the way I bought my chickens! Made their pen, which they are at this very moment making home.  Hurray I am finally seeing a little bit of progression to become the self sufficient creative type that I have always desired to be; of course I have had practise, growing up on the family farm, learning how to grow veg from my Grandmother, learning about the changing seasons from my Grandfather, taking cuttings and pruning trees from my Father and cooking and preserving what we had grown from my Mother.  Then I moved around various parts of the country and to countries further a field too, enjoyed myself a little and learnt life skills and now I feel ready to put all I have learnt into my new house and grow a home!

So please pop back soon and read more of my Blogs.

Helen

Now growing vegetables to me is something I have always just been able to do, putting the main elements together to be able to produce fruit or veg to take back into my kitchen and cook. Simple!

For some people however, taking on the task of building a vegetable plot and growing their own food is something they have never done before.  So this blog is to help those people gain a little understanding of those key elements to then go onto to produce home grown food for themselves and their family.  Growing at home or an allotment is so popular at the moment, especially with the price of produce at supermarkets which is incredibly tasteless, grown out of season and mostly outside of Great Britain.

So here are the factors you need to think about when starting your fruit and vegetable patch.

Choosing the right spot

Your plot needs to be light and airy with plenty of sun light throughout the day.

It should be south facing. Avoid areas with trees and large fences which will potentially shelter the area.

If the plot is open and exposed you will need to consider some kind of wind break position to block the wind, maybe a small fence, hedge or wall.

Access and Water

Your plot should have good access so that not only is it not too far away from your home, but you can easily reach it and get a wheel barrow to it.  If you are buying in things like soil improver or topsoil you will need to think about vehicle access too!

Also water, is there water near to the plot or will you have to take water to it, if so how will you do it and can you easily do it.

Soil

If you are mainly growing in pots then you wont need to worry about this section too much.  Just ensure you are using the best compost you can buy that has been specifically designed for fruit and veg and contains the correct balance of nutrients and the best structure to help promote healthy growth.

Soil is the anchor for your plants, it holds water, air and nutrients to make plants grow.

From clay to sand all soil types will be suitable to grow some fruit and veg successfully and others not so!

Clay holds nutrients well but is heavy slow to warm up, it also holds the water.  Sandy soils are lighter and easily eroded, the lack of substance means its ability to hold nutrients is poor.

Sadly you can't choose which your soil type is but you can improve it's nutrient content and improve the quality.  You can use things such as kitchen waste like vegetable peelings or well rotted manure.  Also a great idea is to buy soil improver's or compost which you mix into the soil plant beds from around February.

Helen