Growing Tomatoes using the Ring Culture Method

Each year I like to grow a few tomatoes. My favourite variety is 'Gardener's Delight' which produces lots of small sweet fruits. This variety can be grown outside as a bush plant but the weather in this part of the country is not really good enough to ensure a decent crop. So I prefer to raise my tomatoes in the greenhouse. Tomatoes are easy to grow under glass, whether grown in the soil border or in growbags or pots. If you use the soil border to grow your tomatoes the soil will need changing after 2-3 years. If you use pots then a richer soil based compost such as John Innes No.3 is required.                   My greenhouse has a solid floor and I don't really like using growbags so I have been using the ring culture method for a number of years and find this gives excellent results. This simple system uses 12 inch diameter bottomless pots (also called rings) which stand on an isolated bed of aggregate such as gravel, crushed stone or pebbles. My aggregate bed is a frame constructed of 6 inch deep wooden planks lined with plastic sheet and filled with small pebbles. Plastic 12 inch diameter rings are placed on the aggregate bed spaced 18 inches apart. These are filled with John Innes No. 3 compost and a bamboo cane is inserted into each ring to train the tomato plants up. After planting water in well and leave for a few days for the plants to root through the compost into the aggregate. Continue to water the compost sparingly for a few weeks followed by watering the aggregate regularly. Once the first couple of flower trusses have set and the fruits have started to swell, a proprietary tomato feed can be watered into the compost on a fortnightly basis. When growing tomatoes up canes or wires as a cordon, make sure any side shoots are removed so the plant's energy is concentrated in the production of the fruits.