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Tomato Seeds (Shirley F1) - Description
- Variety: Shirley F1 Tomato Seeds
- Solanum Lycopersicum Vegetable
- Early Maturing Round Tomatoes
- Vine / Salad Tomato
- Type: Round, Red
- Packet Size: 10 Seeds
- Good Disease Resistance
- Easy to Grow
- Excellent Flavour
Tomato Seeds (Shirley F1) - Sowing Instructions
- Sow:
- Indoors: Jan to April
- Plant Out: April to June
- Harvest: June to October
- A constant supply of moisture is essential
- See how to grow tab for full growing instructions
- Tomatoes are thirsty & hungry plants
- Feed & water regularly
Tomato Seeds (Shirley F1) - Uses
- Ideal for salads
- Suited to outdoors growing
- Great for general cooking
- Heavy cropping variety
Tomato Seeds (Shirley F1) - Advantages
- Recommended for beginners - A popular choice
- Excellent flavour
- High yields
- Award winning
- Succeeds equally well in soil or in grow bags
- Can be grown outdoors
Index
- Sowing Instructions
- How to Transplant
- Crop Maintenance
- How to Harvest
Tomatoes are mostly grown in a greenhouse. It is warmth and not direct sunlight which promotes fruit ripening. Tomato plants can be grown from plants bought from garden centres in May or raised from seed in February.
Sowing Instructions
- Sowing Time: Sow indoors in February
- Sowing location: Sow in 24 cell trays or 9cm pot indoors, under cover
- Sow 3 seeds in each pot & thin out later
- Or sow 1 seed per cell
- Sow seed 0.1cm deep in 3 inch pots using potting compost
- Place in propagator
How to Transplant
- Prick out into 9cm pots once large enough
- April / May transplant again into larger, 1ltr pots using potting compost & place in greenhouse
- Some varieties can be grown outdoors in May
- These include Sungold F1 & Alicante
Growing outdoors
- Transplant seedlings in late May
- Position in a warm, sheltered & south facing sunny location
- Plant into soil which is fertile, moist and drains well
- Add well rotted farm-yard manure to soil before planting
- Keep soil moist throughout growing season
- A regular water supply is essential for a successful crop
Crop Maintenance
- Feeding
- Use a liquid feed. Once first flowers appear, use tomato feed, or fertilizer high in Potash
- Read instructions provided on fertilizer label
- Feed once each week
- Watering
- Avoid irregular watering: If plants dry out, fruits can shrink leading to splitting
- If over watered, tomatoes can develop ‘blossom end rot’, a black mould on base of fruits
- Keep soil moist, water once a week
- Supporting
- Tie main stem to a cane or support plants by tying them to greenhouse crossbars over head
- Do not tie twine too tight around stem
- Pruning
- Reduce the number of fruiting stems to speed up ripening
- Plants can be pruned so that only the main stem and 4 or 5 side shoots remain
- Remove any remaining side shoots as they appear (from the base of every leaf), this is known as pinching out
- Cut off yellowing leaves and those shading lower ‘trusses’ of fruit
How to Harvest
- Harvest after 25 weeks
- Tomatoes require heat for fruit to ripen
- Maintain regular watering at time of harvest
- If fruits are still green, ripen indoors
- Placing tomatoes in a warm location next to bananas helps speed up ripening process
