Grow bigger, juicier tomatoes with Monty Don's homemade fertiliser recipe

Tomatoes are a favourite among gardeners due to their ease of cultivation, but they require more nutrients than most other plants. Gardener's World's Monty Don suggests that tomatoes will yield larger and tastier fruit if adequately supplied with potassium, an essential nutrient for fruit production.

The gardening expert also revealed how to create a homemade potassium fertiliser to enhance crop growth, using just one common garden plant, reports the Express.

Monty explained: "Potassium is what plants need to form good flowers and fruit, and fruiting flowers like tomatoes and gooseberries have quite a high potassium demand. You can boost that at this time of year and improve fruit production. One way of doing that is to go to a garden centre and buy liquid or granular fertiliser, but there's no need as you can also grow your own supply of potassium really easily through comfrey. "

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Comfrey, a common garden weed recognised for its large hairy leaves, is rich in potassium and other nutrients necessary for tomatoes, such as calcium. Monty stated: "Its main use to me in this garden is to provide the raw material for a liquid feed that's high in potassium."

He further cautioned: "A caution about comfrey is that once it gets established it has deep roots and it's quite hard to get rid of. However, you shouldn't get rid of too much as it really is so useful."

How to make a homemade tomato fertiliser

You will need:

• Comfrey leaves

• Large waterproof bucket with lid

• Large stone to weigh on a bucket

• Plastic bottles such as old milk bottles

• Watering can

Method

1. Start off by picking some comfrey leaves directly from the plant but be sure to wear gloves to protect your skin, as the leaves can cause irritation.

2. You'll need to strip away any flowering stems from the comfrey, then chop the leaves into small pieces.

3. Pile these up in a waterproof container and then pour water over them.

4. Put the lid on the filled container and safely stash it somewhere secure in your garden for several weeks. The aim is for the leaves to break down and create a potent liquid.

5. After roughly three weeks, you should find that the comfrey combo has turned into a horribly odorous brown fluid. Decant this foul fertiliser into plastic bottles, then store in a cool and dark place until required.

6. When it's time to fuel your tomatoes, filter out the leaves and dilute the concoction at a ratio of one part comfrey solution to ten parts water. Be aware the stronger the fertiliser, the more it needs watering down.

7. Then place it in a watering can and use it to feed your tomato plants, where you will help give your tomatoes a boost to get bigger, juicer and better quality fruit for your next harvest.

Monty explains: "The idea is to loosely fill a bucket or just put what leaves you've got, then put water in on top of that and leave it to brew for three weeks. Remember use a covered container, preferably one with a heavy lid perhaps weighted down with a stone."

While comfrey's benefits for tomato plants are well-known, so too is its pungent stench as it decomposes. Monty warns: "Then, when it is properly made, it will form a black vile-smelling sludge, and I'm not exaggerating it smells disgusting... it's covered not to protect the brew but to protect us from its vile smell."