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Kids Go Gardening - plant a bite sized treat

Untitled Document

Here comes summer - it’s time to plant tomatoes! Cherry tomatoes make a sweet colourful snack - just the right size for your lunchbox. Grow your own and taste the sunshine in them!

Tomato leaves catch the sun and turn its energy into sugars which ends up in the fruit - no wonder they taste so good!

Grow cherry tomatoes in a bucket

You will need:

  1. A large bucket with holes in the bottom for drainage or a large black plastic grow back (PB40)
  2. Three bamboo stakes at least 1.5m long.
  3. Outdoor Container Mix or Vegetable Mix
  4. A Cherry tomato plant or your choice (e.g ‘Sweet 100’)
  5. Tomato food

How to plant:

  1. Choose a warm, sunny sheltered spot.
  2. Fill your bucket with Container Mix.
  3. Evenly space the three stakes near the edges of you container, press them firmly into the mix and tie them together at the top to make a kind of teepee for you tomato to grow on.
  4. Scoop out a small hole in the middle of the mix, big enough to fit your tomato plant.
  5. Tip the tomato plant out of its pot, and gently place it in the hole pressing the mix around it.
  6. Water throughly with a watering can.

Caring for tomatoes

  1. Tie the cherry tomato loosely to the bamboo teepee as it grows.
  2. Once flowers appear, feed them every week with liquid Tomato Food.
  3. Water tomato plants every day to keep them moist.
  4. Let your tomatoes ripen on the plant – sunshine makes them sweet and tasty.

Tomatoes from seed

You can grow your own cherry tomato plants from seed. There are lots of different varieties to choose from. Sow your seeds into small pots or recycled containers filled with Black Magic seed raising mix. Drainage holes are essential! Keep them watered and watch them grow. After a few weeks they will be ready to transplant into a bigger pot.

Interesting

  1. Cherry tomatoes come in all sorts of colours red, yellow, orange, even black.
  2. Tomatoes are high in anti-oxidant lycopenes – very good for your health.

 

Look for these products, tips and advice at a Go Gardening Store near you.



1-Nov-2016

 

tomatoes
"Sweet 100" tomatoes

tomatoes
Tip the tomato plant out of its pot and gently place it in the hole, pressing the container mix around it.

©2018 New Zealand Plant Producers Incorporated.