Our tomatoes at Sutton Community Farm are not doing very well. They are wilting in their module trays, refusing to produce true leaves and generally looking a bit sad. We reckon it’s probably because of the wildly fluctuating temperatures they have been subjected to since birth. Partly down to the weather, partly down to the fact that our polytunnel is a bit of a disappointment heat and light wise (more on this later) it’s been really hard to maintain consistent temperatures. And tomatoes like consistency, preferably at around 18-20 degrees Centigrade. (The picture no. 12 of the cold stressed seedlings on this website looks very familiar.)
At the beginning of the week we put the tomatoes into Intensive Care. Potting them on carefully will hopefully give them a new lease of life. Many of the plants look leggy and a bit feeble on their stems. By planting them into pots up to the cotelydons hopefully they’ll be encouraged to put out new roots from the buried stems and anchor themselves in their new home.
Sad, feeble tomatoes
Perkier tomatoes now they are potted up.
The inherited polytunnel we use for propagation has become problematic for other seedlings, not just the tomatoes. The main woes are:
- The thing is on the wrong aspect. It faces north-south. The other polytunnels face east-west and therefore get morning light from the east and afternoon/evening light from the west. They are warmer and lighter.
- The plastic cover seems to be reflecting some light away. It’s sort of white and we think that this is bouncing off precious rays that the thousands of seedlings inside really need to penetrate through.
Now, you may ask yourself why these things haven’t been picked up upon before. But sometimes it’s only through doing that we realise the error of our ways. Growing is all about doing, and something obvious in retrospect completely escapes us beforehand. Ahem.
Next season we will probably move our propagation paraphernalia and benches into one of the other east-west polytunnels. For the time being though we are working with what we have. At least the air temperature is gradually rising and, what with the April showers and rainbows, the weather is finally doing something it’s supposed to.
Out in the field we direct sowed turnips and three types of beetroot, and potted up 500 kale plants (red russian and cavolo nero).
Written by Charlotte Steel, Growing Apprentice at the Farm. You can read more posts by Charlotte on her very own blog: apprenticegrower.wordpress.com