Growing Tomatoes – Is It Really Worth The Effort?

Posted on 21. Jul, 2010 by Tracey in Veg Plot

Every year I grow Tomatoes even though I say its not worth the effort this year, I grow them anyway. I have a love hate relationship with them every year.

Out of all the vegetables to grow, most people start vegetable growing with tomatoes and I think they are the most attention seeking vegetables of all, requiring lots of care with watering, fertilising and pot swapping. Then there’s the pest control with aphids, blackfly, slugs, snails and the dreaded blight. Oh and then there’s the more watering and waiting nearly six months to reap any kind of harvest, thats if your lucky enough to get some tomatoes before any disease strikes your plants through no fault of your own.

If you get through all that and your a beginner vegetable grower, you deserve a medal and will go far in the vegetable growing world!

As any other vegetables in comparison like radishes, lettuce, chard, mange tout, french beans, runner beans, potatoes, onions, beetroot are far less painful to grow, don’t nearly require as much work, care or attention and still give you a great harvest in less amount of time.

Tomatoes

I know I make my life a lot harder by growing tomatoes in pots as they dry out a lot quicker than if I grew them in raised beds and this is half my battle. The other half is they require nurturing and watering in a mini-greenhouse for the first part of their lives where I forget to water them and forget to lift the lid on hot days which doesn’t help their growth.

For me growing tomatoes in pots is a battle for me to keep them alive, this is probably something you can’t believe that I’m saying for a such a keen vegetable grower but I’m an outdoor vegetable grower through and through. I watch the weather forecast closely and check when I can get my next free rainfall and when the next hot spell will be so I know when to water.

Yellow Pear Tomatoes (feeling neglected)

So I know your dying to ask, am I growing Tomatoes this year?

Yes of course I am, with all my gripes about growing them and the fact they are so needy, I still end up falling for the glossy fruit in the seed catalogues and think I’ll give it one more go, thinking I surely can’t be plagued by blackfly every year?! Can I?! Yes I can and have again this year.

Here’s a picture of my Tomato Plants which I decided to plant in my raised beds to save myself a headache on watering:

Tomato Plant in Raised Bed

Variety I’m Growing this year is: Yellow Centiflor.

Other Tomato Related Posts:

• Growing Tomatoes
• Potting On Tomatoes
• Tomatoes – Are Yours Red Yet?
• Tomato and Potato Blight Disease
• Tomatoes, Cucumbers and Peppers on the Deck.

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