Tomato

Grow or find Tomato

• Find Tomato in the plant swap marketplace →
• Plan your Tomato growing season →

Pests & beneficial insects

🐛 Prone to: Aphids

Aphids

Aphididae

Curled leaves, sticky honeydew and ants on patrol — usually with something already eating them.

, Whitefly

Whitefly

Aleyrodidae

A puff of white when you brush the leaf, and stickiness underneath.

, Cutworms

Cutworms

Noctuidae

A seedling lying beside its own stump in the morning, cut clean through at soil level.

.

Attract

to keep them in check — plant nearby.

Growing from seed

Start Tomato indoors about 6 weeks before your last frost, keeping seeds in warm soil (around 20–25 °C). Seeds usually come up in around 7 days. Move seedlings out once the danger of frost has passed, in full sun, spaced about 60 cm apart. Expect to harvest in roughly 80 days.

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  Growing Tomatoes: From First Sowing to the Last Ripe Fruit

  Tomatoes are the crop most gardeners fall for first — and the one that most rewards getting the timing right. This is the whole arc: sowing, planting out, the one pruning decision that actually matters, keeping them fed and even, and coaxing the last fruit to colour before the cold.

  Read the guide

Companion Planting

• Great pair

  • ❧Wild Garlic attracts Hoverflies, which prey on the Aphids that attack Tomato
  • ❧Wild Garlic acts as living mulch, keeping soil moist and weeds down around Tomato
  • ❧Tomato gives Wild Garlic sheltering shade in the heat of summer
• Great pair

  • ❧African Marigold attracts Hoverflies and Lacewings and more, which prey on the Aphids and Whitefly that attack Tomato
  • ❧African Marigold suppresses pests that trouble Tomato
  • ❧Tomato draws Bumblebees and Bees and more that improve pollination for both
• Great pair

How to grow Tomato

1. Sow6 weeks before frost
2. Germinates7 days
3. Space60 cm apart