Kitchen Garden Forum

Hello All,

This is my first post to this forum and I’m looking forward to sharing experiences, following all your exploits and hoping to gain from your collective knowledge.

I am newish to veg gardening having retired from a tiny garden in town to a large plot in the country. Over the past 3 years I have grown tomatoes in the polytunnel borders with reasonable success but I was considering trying the ring culture method this year. However, I am having difficulty finding out the best way of approaching this. Each source I have found has different, sometimes conflicting, advice but never all the information.

My intention was to dig out the depleted soil from the borders to a depth of about 6”, line them with polythene and fill with pea gravel (is this the best medium?). I would then plant up the ‘rings’ using compost (John Innes No 3?) and, once established, set them on the gravel.

The main question is should I, or should I not, put drainage holes in the plastic - the jury appears to be out on this one?

Has anyone out there used this method? If so, your comments and advice would be greatly appreciated.


Thanks in advance - Diane

Hello and welcome

By holes in the plastic, you mean the polythene sheet under the gravel, yes ?

I follow the approach you describe, but use grit sand (builder's concreting or plastering sand does and is cheaper than horticultural). And I put the rings in place on the sand and plant into them - moving a plant in a bottomless pot sounds possible, but fraught ! I use 15 litre buckets with the bottom removed for rings.

I do not make holes in the polythene. I take care not to overwater tomatoes as I believe it is not good for the flavour, also I don't want anything to drain away through holes because it will carry nutrients with it.

A couple of other things I do is to put a layer of polystyrene chips from old packaging under the polythene as insulation, and bury a heating cable in the sand. I like early tomatoes, and it is a cheap way of getting going a month earlier.

This is just what I do, and I am sure that there may be better ways, so looking forward to any alternative ideas ... !

Thanks for the advice Tony, I will give it a try. Unfortunately, it will have to be without the heating cables. I’ll just have to wait a little longer for my toms.

A couple of questions; I hope you don’t mind me asking....

Do you wash the sand before use and do you reuse the sand or replace every year?

How often do you feed your plants? In January’s mag, Chris Cole of Heirloom Tomatoes is quoted as saying that the plants only need a half strength feed every 3-4 weeks!

Regards, Diane

I don't wash the sand. I usually use it for a couple of years, scraping off just the top inch and replacing it with fresh each year - whether that makes any difference other than looking tidy I don't know !

I aim to use Chase organic tomato fertiliser as it says on the pack, that is every fortnight, but I am not very disciplined so it probably ends up being less, maybe in fact not much more than Chris Cole's recommendation. My tomato plants usually look less lush than other peoples, but seem to produce good tasty fruit.

I'm not very disciplined either, I'm afraid. Too many other jobs to do as we have a very neglected plot to tame; the nettles and brambles are winning! The upside is that it produces vast quantities of compostable material and blackberries.

A fortnightly feed sounds like a reasonable regime though. Lush plants are one thing but it is great tasting fruit we are after. I'll look out for the feed you mentioned.

Thanks again for the advice.

Regards, Diane

We used grow bags. We placed the rings on top of complete grow bags and then filled the rings up with grow bag medium. It worked really well

Thanks GL (if you don't mind me calling you that), another method to try. If I can get organised I may run the two methods in parallel and see which works best for me.

Btw, I have only had a brief look but, your web site looks very interesting with some very useful info.

Regards, Diane

Thanks Diane - you can call me GL or even Sue if you like!

Hi Diane,
If you have buried polythene under gravel there is no need to make holes just so long as the polythene lies flat and you have not turned it up all the way round. If you have turned it up all the way round scrape the gravel away at both ends and simple put a fork through it at both ends.
By doing this you will conserve water in the green house.
This may confuse you a little but water under the gravel will not harm your plants.
JB.

Not sure which way I'll go at present but thanks for the tip, JB.

Regards, Diane.

The traditional method for ring culture was to use whale hide pots, not sure if you can still buy these .Not real whale hide , black /red flexible cardboard which was waterproof.The pots were stood in trays of gravel and pots filled in layers of compost and manure.The results were stunning , little feeding required as the water went throught the compost and manure into the gravel filled trays .Avoid these new commercial varities and go with a older variety of tomatoe, better flavour by far.
Plant marigolds around the tomatoes to prevent greenfly and too help improve the flavour along with a little basil...perfect !!!!
Worked for years for me when I had a greenhouse.

Thanks 'thetangoman'. Yet more ideas to explore.

Regards, Diane.

I've had good results with a variant form of ring culture in a greenhouse. I put two inches of pea gravel or vermiculite in a large plastic tray. On top I set a large upside-down plastic pot with the bottom cut out. I slip a piece of wood underneath then fill the pot with compost, then pull out the wood so the compost stays in place.

In goes a tomato transplant. The first few days I water both the pot and the tray, keeping the liquid level just below the aggregate. After a week or two, I water only the aggregate. I never drain the plastic tray. The plants are so thirsty that they drink up the liquid too quickly for it to stagnate.

For feed, I use comfrey tea diluted eight parts of infusion to one part water - at the start. As the fruits develop, I increase the strength to 3:1.

I've grown indeterminate tomatoes ten foot tall and out of the greenhouse roof, using virtually no soil. And maybe I'm imagining it but... that all-organic feed gives the fruit a deliciously rich flavour you just can't get with proprietary liquid feeds.

Thanks for the information, John. Your method clearly produces good crops. I hope I have as much success, whichever method I choose. All the varieties I will be growing are indeterminate; I'll let you know if I beat 10ft. Can't wait to get going.

Regards, Diane.

Good luck, Diane! Did I mention that, if you grow tomatoes under cover (a simple transparent awning will do, to keep the rain off), you're less likely to get blight. Blight develops mostly on damp leaves. Only fools, darned fools and gardeners try to grow tomatoes outdoors in northern Europe nowadays. Or so I'm told...