We can easily and simply grow a “Thumbelina” tomato on a windowsill or summer cottage according to instructions from experienced farmers
If you like Cherry tomatoes, you will definitely love Thumbelina tomatoes. The fruits of this variety are small, neat and at the same time very tasty. Children will surely like them. Decorating snacks, meat or fish with them is a pleasure. Thumbelina tomatoes add an unusual taste and sophisticated appearance to salads.
In addition, bushes will perfectly decorate your window sill or balcony. Their vibrant green foliage creates a cozy and fresh feeling.
Description of the variety
Variety Thumbelina determinant And tall. The bushes reach a height of 1.5 meters, and sometimes 2. Therefore, it is worth pinching the top at a plant height of 1.5 m - this will have a beneficial effect on the development of the fruit.
Reference. In determinate varieties of tomatoes, it is necessary to remove growing points.
According to the speed of ripening, Thumbelina is classified as an early ripening plant. The first harvest is obtained 90 days after planting the seeds.
This variety is grown in greenhouses or at home, for example, on a balcony.
Distinctive features
The main feature of the variety is, of course, the size of the fruit. Miniature tomatoes look impressive. In addition, they ripen synchronously. They are collected with a whole brush.
Fruit characteristics, yield
Thumbelina tomatoes are round in shape, weighing 15-20 g. Ripe tomatoes have a beautiful red color. Pleasant to the touch, smooth and dense. This variety is considered dessert. They will delight you with their excellent sweet taste.
About 15 tomatoes are tied on each brush.
The variety produces maximum yield when grown in 2-3 stems. With proper care, you can collect up to 4.7 kg from one square meter.
How to grow seedlings
Like many other nightshade varieties, Thumbelina is sown for seedlings in March, after preparing the seeds and soil.
Seed preparation
Planting material should be disinfected before sowing to get rid of diseases that live on the surface of the seeds. Prepare a weak solution of manganese and place the grains in it for 3 minutes. Then rinse them, wrap them in wet gauze and leave them in a warm place for 3 days.
Do not let the gauze dry; spray it with water at room temperature.
After the seeds hatch, transplant them into prepared soil.
Container and soil
To sow seeds, buy a special soil mixture or prepare it yourself. Mix garden soil, sand, peat or humus and add some mineral fertilizers and charcoal.
It is initially convenient to use boxes for seedlings, but it is better to plant plants in glasses with a volume of 200-250 g.
Sowing
Plant the sprouted seeds in grooves 1 cm deep at a distance of 2 cm from each other. Then sprinkle with earth.
Important. When planting, the soil should be moist.
To speed up seed germination, cover the boxes with film or thin glass. Place the boxes with seedlings in a warm place and maintain the temperature at +20-25 degrees. The first shoots will appear in 5-6 days.
Growing and care
After sprouts appear, remove the film or glass. Take care of the lighting. If the room where the seedlings are located is not bright enough, add additional light sources. It is better to use a special phytolamp, but in the absence of one, ordinary ones will do.
Regularly spray the soil with a spray bottle to maintain the desired level of humidity.
At night, ventilate the room with seedlings, but avoid drafts and low temperatures.
Start picking when 2-3 leaves appear on the plants. You should not wait longer, as the roots of the seedlings are actively growing and intertwining. Transplantation injures the root system - the plants will take longer to recover or even die.
If you still want to pick older plants with 5-6 leaves, then initially plant seedlings less frequently or thin out the sprouts after germination.
Transplant seedlings into 250 g glasses, no more. This variety does not have such a powerful root system. And in the ground, which is not occupied by roots, a flexible plant quickly appears, destructive for Thumbelina.
After picking, place the tomatoes in a shaded place for 1-2 days, and then again provide good lighting. After a week, start hardening off the sprouts. Take the seedlings outside every day. First for 20-30 minutes, then gradually increase the time to 3-4 hours a day.
1.5 weeks after picking, carry out the first feeding of the tomatoes. Use purchased complex fertilizers or prepare the mixture yourself. Feeding recipe: for 10 liters of water, take 12 g of potassium sulfate, 35 g of superphosphate and 4 g of urea. Mix all ingredients well and wait until they are completely dissolved in water. Combine fertilizer with watering.
Water the tomatoes as the soil dries out. Not abundantly, so that the soil is slightly moist and the water does not stagnate.
How to grow tomatoes
Growing Thumbelina tomatoes is not difficult even for novice gardeners.In this section of the article you will learn the basics of care for obtaining healthy and strong tomatoes and a high yield.
Landing
IN greenhouse Replant tomatoes 45-50 days after seed germination. This is approximately mid-May.
If further cultivation is planned at home, transplant the tomatoes into a looser container, also in mid-May. We will describe the details of growing Thumbelina in a greenhouse, on a balcony and a windowsill below.
As with many others varieties tomatoes, prepare the soil for them in the fall.
Clear the ground of weeds and remove the top layer of soil in which various fungi and pests have accumulated. Then lay a layer of sawdust, straw, pine needles 5 cm thick. They are necessary to loosen the soil.
Add a little lime to normalize acidity. Level the manure with a layer of 10 cm and pour greenhouse soil on top. To enrich the soil with nitrogen, sow mustard, buckwheat or clover. In spring, dig up the soil along with the grass.
2 weeks before planting seedlings, loosen the soil, remove weeds, and apply fertilizer.
Moisten the soil before planting the bushes. Prepare the holes; place fertilizer with phosphorus at the bottom of the holes. Planting pattern: 60x70 cm. Install supports for future plant garter.
After planting, water the soil around the tomatoes, loosen the soil to allow oxygen to reach the roots.
Plant care
Form Thumbelina tomato bushes into 2-3 stems. With this formation, the best yield is achieved.
When the tomatoes grow to 30 cm, tie them to the supports. Next, tie the stems as they grow.
Further care consists of timely watering, weed removal, pinching, loosening and fertilizing.
Apply fertilizers during important periods of growth: flowering, ovary formation and fruit formation.
Use complex fertilizers, e.g. “Solution”, “Magnesium sulfate”, “Potassium monophosphate”, “Kemira Universal-2”. Or use traditional feeding methods: bird droppings, ash, peat.
Features of cultivation and possible difficulties
The Thumbelina variety does not have any particular growing characteristics. The main thing is to adhere to basic care requirements. Avoid excess moisture (this leads to cracking of the fruit) and fertilize the tomatoes according to the described scheme.
Diseases and pests
The Thumbelina variety is quite resistant to the main types of nightshade diseases.
But there are diseases that can be destructive to these plants:
Tobacco mosaic virus appears when the greenhouse is poorly ventilated, as well as with high air humidity and excessive density of shrubs. The disease manifests itself in the form of light green and yellow mosaic spots. Plants begin to break, fruits burst. The virus is spread by aphids and thrips. When symptoms appear, treat the damaged bush with a whey solution (10%) with the addition of microfertilizers.- Late blight - a common fungal disease. There is no absolute way to combat fungus, so take preventative measures in advance. Treat the plants with Fitosporin, Gamair, and Alirin. It is recommended to spray Thumbelina tomatoes when the first ovaries form. In autumn, carefully remove any remaining tomatoes. In the spring, wash the walls of the greenhouse.
The nuances of growing in open ground and in a greenhouse
Thumbelina is intended for growing in greenhouses or at home.But this variety is not very suitable for open ground, since the plants do not tolerate temperature changes well and can die from low temperatures.
We have already discussed growing in a greenhouse earlier, now let’s talk about how to get a good harvest of Thumbelina at home.
Growing at home on the windowsill and balcony
To successfully grow this variety at home, also start by preparing the soil.
Buy ready-made soil mixtures, such as Exo, or prepare the mixture yourself. Here are some simple recipes to choose from:
- Mix turf, humus and peat in a 1:1:1 ratio.
- Mix sand and peat in a 1:1 ratio, add 2 parts of leaf soil to the resulting mass.
In such soil, indoor tomatoes will receive all the necessary nutrients and will better thrive on the windowsill.
To transplant seedlings, use pots with a volume of at least 3 liters. Plant each bush in a separate container.
Tomatoes grown at home require special care. This is due to the fact that there is a limited amount of nutrients in a closed pot.
Water as the soil dries, approximately once every 8-10 days. The water should be at room temperature, settled.
When growing tomatoes on the balcony, it is very important to monitor the room temperature. During the day it should be from +18 to +22 degrees, at night - from +15 to +17 degrees. To avoid extreme heat, ventilate the room or balcony, but avoid drafts.
Feeding and tying up plants is similar to these procedures in a greenhouse.
Here, in general, are all the subtleties of caring for Thumbelina tomatoes on the windowsill and balcony.
Harvesting and application
3 months after seed germination, the harvest ripens. The fruits ripen synchronously.Collect them with whole brushes, it’s much more convenient. On the windowsill, a bush with ripe bunches of tomatoes looks especially impressive.
Since Thumbelina tomatoes are considered dessert tomatoes and have a sweetish taste, they are perfect for salads and appetizers. They like to eat them fresh and use them as decorations on the holiday table. Thanks to their miniature size and thick skin, tomatoes are great for pickling and drying.
Advantages and disadvantages of the variety
Among the advantages of this variety we highlight:
- The variety is easy to care for. All care comes down to regular watering and fertilizing.
- It pollinates independently, which allows you to grow tomatoes on the balcony and on the windowsill.
- The root system does not grow much and the plants grow well in pots and boxes.
- Resistant to major nightshade diseases.
- The variety is early ripening.
The main disadvantage of the Thumbelina variety is its intolerance to sudden changes in temperature and cold. That's why they are grown in a greenhouse or at home.
Farmer reviews
Thumbelina tomatoes have received many reviews on various gardening forums. Here are some of them:
Vera, St. Petersburg: “I grew it in a greenhouse. For the first time in 2015. In 1 stem. There were 16-18 tomatoes in the bunch. Well ripened, sweet and very tasty. I am pleased. We feasted on tomatoes until the end of September.”
Albina, Yaroslavl: “I grew it in a greenhouse. I liked the variety, I’ve been planting it for 3 years now. The yield is high, the fruits are not so small. Suitable for salads and canning. But they grow tall, more than two meters.”
Svetlana Naumova, Stary Oskol: “I heard a lot about the Thumbelina variety and decided to plant it on the site, but in open ground.The fruits were disappointing - the peel was a bit harsh, the tomatoes were more sour than sweet. There are too many stepchildren, so the bushes took up a lot of space.”
Conclusion
Now you can easily grow the beautiful Thumbelina variety both at home and in a greenhouse. For your efforts, you will receive not only incredibly tasty and aromatic fruits, but also decorative bushes that will give you the feeling of a real greenhouse at home. At the same time, there are practically no difficulties in growing, the variety is hardy and has a high yield.