The Tomato Growing Thread 2019

@JWK .
AND, to date , have NO blight at all on these 2 patio tomatoes . Still picking about 8 a day and they are both still superb.
Jenny namaste

 

No blight for me either.

I won’t be growing Black Russian next year; the taste was good but the yield was terrible.

 

We’ve just come home from holiday to this little lot, loads more to ripen still. Found some blight on one of my Outdoor Girl plants but everything else is fine!

 

that's a super hoard -

 

A mix from today......



From the top ....... Super Marmande, Golden Sunrise, Sweet Million, Roma and Ildi.

 

We’ve just grown two varieties this year - supersweet 100 (because I couldn’t get tumbling Tom red seeds) and our old favourites, a small yellow pear tomato, from seed saved from a Brittany holiday many years ago. It’s a very old fashioned cordon, will grow up to 3 metres in a good year, and we zig-zag it back and forth against a warm wall.
Both varieties “stood still” during the extreme heatwave. They are mostly container-grown, and we just couldn’t get enough water in to compensate for the 40+c temps.
The yellow pear toms started cropping early August (have been as early as 4th July in other years), the supersweets not starting until mid August. Both were cropping well as we left...

Some that we brought with us... the yellows continue to deepen off the vine.

Both have good flavour, but the yellows always win any taste test!

 

Hi @Sian in Belgium , your yellow ones look and sound like our " Ildi " if that helps

 

I was wondering that, @KFF.

The original ones came from a holiday where the cottage owner gave us his cottage (wanted to raise money to visit daughter in USA) for 3 weeks, whilst he travelled with his band... They were a french heritage variety, apparently. We have grown them from collected seed successfully for years, with the same idiosyncratic plant behaviour each year. Rampant growth, side shoots everywhere, leaves and even shoots sprouting from the end of a fruiting truss.

We are hoping they will do their usual - cropping outside until December!

 

I am unable to let my tomatoes ripen on the vine because as soon as they start looking edible, the chipmunks decide to gnaw on them. I've had quite a few beefsteak tomatoes that I pulled just as they started to show colour and then let ripen indoors. I know this is not ideal and that ripening on the plant probably produces the best flavours but how to stop the gnawing is a puzzler for me.

I'm told they do taste far better than anything from the grocery store so at least that is encouraging

 

Mine have started to ripen although the wind and heavy rain has caused many to drop off. The rain has also caused several to split and some are a bit watery. The best for taste at the moment are Tangella and First in Field, others a following on but much more rain due tomorrow.
It hasn't been great and we'll all do it again next year...won't we!

 

Did my last pick this morning. 12kg of Terenzo's and 10kg of Sweet peppers. Cold nights expected this week so will be left with about 2kg of green toms.

So the kilner jars are filling fast with tomato chutney and tomato and sweet pepper chutneys.

 

As I mentioned in another thread, we had three weeks of almost continuous rain.

After the first of those weeks, the Morrisons Moneymaker-type and the Tumbling Toms had succumbed to blight so all had to be picked by last Friday.



Just moments before.





Total yield for the Moneymaker-type was easily 3-4kg per plant but they take an extremely long time to ripen.

Total yield for the Tumbling Toms was about 2.5-3kg per plant. It was a good year for them.

 

These Morrisons "Grape" cherry tomatoes (same variety used as scions in the grafted tomato thread) were more resilient to blight due to their sunnier location. They only succumbed about seven days ago.






For the benefit of newbies: unless you intend to process the tomatoes by cooking, discard any tomato showing the slightest of blemishes as they will not ripen well indoors - they will most likely rot and infect other tomatoes instead.

Discard these.


The final picking.

 

I have my last batch under Grow Lights and they are turning red.