'Tumbling Tom Red' Tomato Plants

Our vegetable plug plants are bred for good pest and disease resistance, but may still be susceptible to common problems. The main pests and diseases that affect tomatoes are whitefly, aphids and tomato blight. It is important to look out for yellow and curling leaves or rotting fruit as a sign of these. You can prevent blight by keeping leaves away from the soil and also keeping the leaves as dry as possible. If you find whitefly or aphids on your plant try spraying them off with water. You can also plant marigolds which will attract natural predators such as ladybirds which will eat the pests.

Tomatoes are thirsty plants! Water the plants regularly to keep the ground constantly moist. If you are unsure, feel the soil with your hand. If it feels dry up to a fingernail deep then you can give the plant a watering. During very hot, dry spells you may have to water up to twice a day.

Tomatoes need to be planted in full sun.This should be somewhere where they will receive 6-8 hours of sunlight every day.

Thrives in any well-drained soil. If your soil is particularly clay-heavy and/or often becomes waterlogged then you can improve the drainage by adding in plenty of organic matter such as garden compost as well as some perlite or gravel.

When you first pot your plant, you can give it one serving of a balanced (meaning it has an equal amount of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium) plant feed. This helps the green parts of the plant to grow. When you start to see flowers emerge, you will then want to switch to a serving of high potash feed every week. Potash (or potassium) promotes flower and fruit growth and the tomato plant will want a lot of this. High potash feeds are very common and can come as a liquid feed.