Tending your tomatoes

•  Fertilize with banana skins

Grow stronger tomato plants by putting 3-4 banana skins in the bottom of each planting hole. (Note: there is no need to eat all the bananas at once. Freeze the skins in freezer bags until you have enough to work with.) When you plant a tomato seedling, pop the skins in the hole with a mixture of dry leaves, manure and soil. Banana skins act as a kind of time-release fertilizer, leaching potassium and trace minerals into the soil.

•  Aluminium foils root-cooler

To help ripen vine fruit towards the end of the season, lay lightly crumpled aluminium foil around the base of tomato plants, shiny side up and anchor them with a few stones. The foil will reflect the sun’s rays upward, ripening the fruit that are shaded by foliage, and repelling aphids. Foil is also effective when used under peppers — chillies and capsicums — and cucurbits — cucumbers, melons and squashes).

•  An ornamental yet practical support

If you cultivate tidy tomato plants that grow to a certain height and then stop, consider painting a stepladder in bright colours and using it as an ornamental A-frame trellis. Plant one seedling 7-10cm from each leg, and then tie the stems loosely to the ladder as they grow. As the plants mature, they will be supported by the ladder’s sides and treads and no ripening tomatoes will have to rest on the soil and risk rotting.

•  Sugar for sweeter tomatoes

When tomato fruits start to show colour, add a spoonful of sugar to the watering can — especially when you have found a variety that you like but that seems a bit too acidic. (That tomato taste we all long for results from an optimum balance of acidity and sweetness.) Your tomatoes will not only be sweeter but juicier.

•  Prevent blossom end rot with Epsom salts

The bane of many a tomato grower, fruit-spoiling blossom end rot is often caused by a calcium deficiency. It appears as a dry shrivelled area that then darkens on the base of the fruit. This is caused by uneven watering, which results in periodic calcium deficiency in the developing fruit. Mulching and reducing water stress is important, but Epsom salts, which contain magnesium sulphate, aid the transport of calcium. Place 90g at the base of each hole and lightly cover before planting.

•  Grow tomatoes in hay

If you live in a flat without a garden and don’t have anywhere that is suitable for growing tomatoes, take a bale of hay (preferably lucerne) up to your balcony (if building regulations permit) and you will have a nitrogen-rich medium that heats up like a compost pile. Starting in very early spring, water the bale daily to activate the heating process.

Once the bale decays into fertile compost (usually after seven to eight weeks), its cool enough for planting. Create a grower bag by stuffing this compost into a sturdy garbage bag. Seal and place the bag flat, after creating a few drainage holes at the bottom. Create four holes in the top and plant a determinate (or dwarf) tomato variety seedling such as ‘Tiny Tim’ in each hole. Watering daily will keep the plants growing well for the rest of the season.