2017 Tomato Growing

It got too hot for them to set for a while, not the usual case for weather over here, i've had simliar, good start, then it all stopped in that heatwave, only just picking up now.

Have stopped plants and cut off any flowers not set to allow the rest to ripen.

Sundried toms from the decimator are delicious

 

Gets too hot in the greenhouse for Strawberries in the summer, turned mine over to cacti, you can make Teqilla out of them

 

Eye up John, thought you were dead

 

Build a bridge out of em

 

Sorry to hear that, Fats - for me, it has been one of my better years since moving here (three years ago last week ). I've only grown Tumbling Toms, 3 in hanging baskets and 4 plants in the Veg Trug. No signs of blight, the fruits are colouring up nicely, already cooked a batch for the freezer and now ... I'm getting kamikaze tomatoes, so I don't even have to think about which ones are ripe enough to pick!! I simply go out of the back door and ... ooh, lookie! ... another one for the tub

What have I learned?
1) Of the three hanging baskets, the very deepest one (but with the least sunshine) has out performed the two "standard" wire hanging basket plants. Bigger plant, more tomatoes.

2) Of the four in the veg trug, two have stayed fairly small and even then I had to oust the one between those two and put that in a pot of its own because I realised they take up a fair bit more room than their name suggests. The fourth one, with more space to spread its wings, is a belter! The only problem with the 4th one is that it really is tumbling out of the trug and finding a way to support it when those winds were about proved tricky. Resorted to putting empty plastic flower pots on top of the soil to support the limbs of the branches closest to the central stem. No harm done and the fruits on that one are even bigger than the ones in the biggest hanging basket.

I'll be giving them another go next year because if this is a bad year weather-wise ... just think what I might achieve next year.

@Zigs ... great job on those Cilligia Hope they have a good taste and texture to them too.

 

Ta @"M"

Just need one of em to ripen fully by Thursday



Pity I didn't enter heaviest tom category, didn't know this was on the way to ripening then

 

Don't need to be ripe for that class, just heavy, in fact they start to lose weight as they ripen so serious big tom growers pick them just as they start to ripen and keep them in their fridges to stop them from ripening further before the show.

Picked this 1lb 12ozs one to have sliced and fried for my breakfast tomorrow, hoping my biggest will get over 3lbs by next week.

 

Just checked, no class for heaviest at the Melplash show

Good luck with yours Scrunge

 

Get some hens, they love them, plus they'd eat your surplus courgettes, and they'll eat the stringy bits removed from runners (pop them in a flask of boiling water first), and they'll eat all the surplus tomatoes, and your grandkids will love them. And they'll provide the best manure you can get. Oh, you will also get fantastic eggs.

 

My first Angelina

 

Some of my Gigantomos today.





The heaviest so far.


Cut horizontally.