Kitchen Garden Forum

Many of my toms are coming to the end of their natural life but a significant number are still growing strongly with plenty of lush green growth. Watering is a must anyway, with it being so dry currently, but should I give them an end-of-season feed of tomato food? These are all in unheated greenhouses and my most vigorous plant, The Beast, doesn't need any help at all. I reckon it trapped an unsuspecting walker passing by, buried the body and has been feeding on it ever since; I had to prune it back again and as much vegetation as nearly all my other plants put together came off it.

Will a late feed do any damage? Or benefit? Or nothing at all?

The aubergines are also making a last minute dash with a few fruits and I guess that the same question applies to them.

I,d give them the benefit of the doubt Vivienne and give them a light feed. If they,re protected in a greenhouse and you still have small tomatoes or aubergines growing they might just give you a small extra crop and ripen, although if the tomatoes are just sprouting greenery with no fruits I probably wouldn,t bother. Seems after th middle of this week we may have lost the last od our ai dian Summer and thwt will probably halt the further development of most of our fruiting crops.

Might be a good idea to cut off surplus leaves thiugh so that all the plants' energies now go into the fruit.

You are doing well to have kept the blight at bay. Every tom this way appears to have succumbed.

Thanks, chaps. As you say, Primrose, I'll give them a light feed just in case they have any oomph left.

Stephen - no sign of blight here, even on the outdoor tomatoes. I don't have many of those, but none have succumbed this year. By contrast, when I was in Bournemouth nothing survived outside, usually falling to blight just as fruits were getting to ripening size. Heartbreaking.