Home-grown tomatoes are one of the best things about growing your own and I normally choose well-established varieties like ‘Alicante’, ‘Shirley’ and ‘Sungold’ for my unheated greenhouse. I rarely raise my own plants from seed because tomatoes hate the cold. These subtropical plants from South America need sun, moisture and warmth to crop well. My garden is too just cold and exposed.

In recent years, tomatoes grown outdoors have succumbed to blight, Phytophthora infestans, and this has devastated the crop. It usually strikes in August and the tomatoes are probably infected by the same strain that’s blighting potatoes nearby. The two plants are both in the solanum family and it’s wise to separate them if possible.

Blight-tolerant varieties are being actively sought by seed companies and there are two new varieties that have shown resistance in recent trials outdoors. ‘Koralik’ (The Organic Gardening Catalogue) is a heritage Russian bush variety that crops early enough to avoid the main August wave of blight. However the foliage has remained healthy, the yield has been consistently high and the small, bright-red tomatoes on each truss ripen together. Tomato ‘Premio’ F1 (from Marshalls) is another disease-resistant variety which has been extensively trialled and this also should be suitable for outdoor use. The flavour is excellent and the fruit has shiny red skin so looks good on the vine.

Tomato plants seem to appear in garden centres at Easter, but this is quite early this year. Only buy strong, green-leaved plants that look healthy. If the plants are small, or the foliage looks slightly blackened or curled at the tips avoid them. Both are classic signs of cold stress and tomato plants in this condition rarely recover. This year gardeners will be able to buy grafted tomato plants for the first time. These have been used by commercial growers for many years. Varieties are grafted on to a vigorous rootstock to encourage greater vigour and yield earlier in the year. Grafting also protects tomatoes from any seed-borne diseases. Suttons are charging an average of £10 for three plants, but the extra cost should be worth it. They are using five different rootstocks on five different varieties and Tom Sharples, the technical manager, thinks it’s the “best thing to happen to tomatoes in recent years”. Plants will be dispatched in late March or April. ‘Conchita’ is a red cherry. ‘Elegance’ is a standard red. ‘Santorange’ is an orange plum. ‘Dasher’ is a mini plum and ‘Belriccio’ a red beefsteak. The company are also grafting aubergines, peppers, melons and chillies.

Young tomato plants need to be kept warm at night and horticultural fleece helps greatly. Water sparingly until the first truss (group of flowers) appears, to encourage a deeper root system. Once the first truss appears, step up the watering, feed with a specialist potash-rich tomato food every two weeks and pick out any side shoots. Restrict the plant to six trusses – making sure that your plants have sufficient support to bear the weight of fruit. (Suttons – 0844 922 0606/ www.suttons.co.uk).