Those tomatoes need pinching out, Adrian | Gardens
Adrian Chiles needs to take his tomato plants in hand (I have created a monster. Can nothing save me from the tomato plant from hell?, 7 September). If he has bush tomatoes, then their higgledy-piggledy shape is fine, although he ought to pinch out the growing shoots now or they will rampage until cut down by frost or old age. If they are the standard upright tomatoes seen in thousands of greenhouses, then he should have removed all the side shoots as the plants grew and pinched out the growing tips when five or six trusses of flowers had appeared.
As to keeping them indoors, if he isn’t living in some frosted hellhole, then the plants will be fine outside and the fruits should ripen soon. The internet is awash with instructions – why hasn’t he been more inquisitive?
Michelle Gibson
Balsham, Cambridgeshire
Adrian Chiles needs to take his tomato plants in hand (I have created a monster. Can nothing save me from the tomato plant from hell?, 7 September). If he has bush tomatoes, then their higgledy-piggledy shape is fine, although he ought to pinch out the growing shoots now or they will rampage until cut down by frost or old age. If they are the standard upright tomatoes seen in thousands of greenhouses, then he should have removed all the side shoots as the plants grew and pinched out the growing tips when five or six trusses of flowers had appeared.
As to keeping them indoors, if he isn’t living in some frosted hellhole, then the plants will be fine outside and the fruits should ripen soon. The internet is awash with instructions – why hasn’t he been more inquisitive?
Michelle Gibson
Balsham, Cambridgeshire
