Jane’s top tips on growing tomatoes in growbags

As we welcome delivery of tomato plants into the garden centre, we caught up with our Head of Seasonal Plants, Jane Earthy, to get her top tips on growing the plants in growbags.

Jane said: “Growbags have been used by amateur and professional gardeners for many years. They contain essential nutrients and produce healthy balanced growth, leading to excellent crops of tomatoes.

“You can fit around three tomato plants into one growbag and the variety of plant you choose will depend on personal taste. When purchasing your plants, select short, stocky specimens or go for some of our grafted ones.

“Once you get your plants and growbags home, dig a sizeable hole in the soil, bigger than the pot your tomato is currently in, ease your plant gentle out of the pot by squeezing the outside of the pot gently to loosen the plant and then pop it in growbag hole you have created. The level of the compost in the original pot should be either level with the growing bag compost or just slightly lower so that it is barely covered.

“Plants should be well watered and you can keep them in a sunny position.

“You can secure the plants with stakes or canes when they reach around 23cm in height. You should continue to tie at 15cm intervals using a gentle garden twine.

“Side shoots will start to appear where the leaf stems join the main stem. These should be removed as they will take nutrients away from the fruit, leading them to become small and weakened.

“You should use a good tomato feed such as Gro-sure Tomato Food once the first flower trusses have grown. Not long after you’ll be ready to enjoy juice, ripe tomatoes.”

Pop in store this month to pick up your tomato plants, growbags and other essential growing equipment.