Caring for your plants

Caring for Your Plants

Once you've planted out your veggies, you might think you can now sit back, relax and wait for the fruits of your labour. There's a bit more work to do however. Most vegetable crops need to be cared for in one way or another, and keeping on top of these small jobs should mean that you'll end up with a better harvest.

Caring for Tomatoes

There are two main types of tomato plant: indeterminate/cordon tomatoes and bush tomatoes.

Bush tomatoes are the easiest ones to grow as they need little care. However, you will get a bigger and longer crop with cordon varieties.

Cordon tomatoes grow upwards and will continue to grow throughout the growing season. They need a lot more attention than bush tomatoes, but will produce fruits throughout the season.

You will need to pinch out the side shoots on your cordon tomatoes throughout the growing season. These can be found between the stem and the leaf node. If they have grown large, you can root them in water and then create a clone plant.

Removing these side shoots means that the plant will put more energy into producing fruit than to growing foliage. It also reduces the chance of blight by increasing air flow.

Caring for Leafy Crops

It is important to continually harvest the leaves of leafy crops, such as salad and loose leaf lettuce. To get a continual harvest, don't harvest the whole crop at the base, just take the lower leaves.

This means you can keep the whole plant for much longer. Harvesting regularly like this also reduces the chance of bolting.

Caring for Flowering Plants

Pinch out and deadhead the flowers on flowering plants, like calendula, once they have turned. If you want continuous flowers throughout the summer, it is important to keep up with this, as otherwise the plant will try to set seeds once pollinated.

Harvesting Calendula Plants

Calendula plant are popular medicinal plants, which are great for attracting pollinators and beneficial pest predators like hoverflies. You can use the flowers to make salves and balms too, which are good for gardener's hands and also great in tea too.

Harvest the flowers in the morning, choosing the ones that are flat and fresh. Dry on a dehydrator and store in a jar until needed.