TOMATO GROWING THREAD 2020

Dog knows what's coming when I get out those small plastic pots with lids from Poundland and start sticking labels on them, waiting with anticipation for me to squeeze tomato seeds into them to ferment before tossing him the remains.

Stabilised Big Zac, Gardeners Delight, Red Alert and Tumbler now saved. Allthough the last 2 are F1, they come close enough enough from saved seeds, wouldn't bother if I could pick up some cheap end of season reductions, but don't expect to find any this year.

 

@Scrungee When you say ...squeeze tomato seeds into them to ferment... what does that mean? Thinking of trying to save some Tom seeds this year but was just going to put them on paper to dry.
Thanks
Tink

 

Choose tomatoes that are red, well ripe if possible, and true to form. The earliest they should be picked if red ones are unavailable is when the first bit of colour shows, then leave to turn red, green tomatoes picked and left to ripen are unlikely to produce viable seeds.

Squeeze the seeds together with their jelly like coating into a pot, top up with lukewarm water to about 1"/25mm and leave somewhere indoors for 2 to 3 days. On day 2 watch for any white sprouts coming from them (meaning they are germinating) and if so process them as below immediately, removing those that have germinated.

After 2/3 days I rinse everything into a fine kitchen seive, then blast the gunk through with a short length of hosepipe attached to the outside tap, leaving clean seeds in the sieve which are tipped out onto double thickness kitchen towel with a sharp tap.

Leave long enough for excess water to soak into the towel, but not long enough for them to dry and stick to it. Rub them off into a small dish to dry. Before they dry enough to stick together I rub between thumb and forefinger to separate them. If processing more than one variety was you hands in between to avoid mixing due to sticking to fingers..

Only package when thoroughly dry. I try and save enough for the next 2 years incase of subsequent crop failure, blight for example.

 

I had eight gardeners delight tomato plants bursting full trusses of fruit.
Rubbing my hands expecting to harvest them now but BLIGHT has taken the lot out.
Hundreds of tomatoes turning black.
See some of them below..
Oh well, at least I've had kilos of runner beans this year.
You can't win them all.

 

Are my tomatoes finished?

Generally nothing has done well in my garden this year. Ive mentioned before that my tomatoes seem very late this year but I still have hundreds (well almost) of small green tomatoes that although cherry type still haven't reached full size let alone start to ripen. The weather has really turned downward now and I can almost, dare I say, smell autumn in the air today. Is there still hope or has the fat lady sung??

 

Thanks @Scrungee thats amazing instructions, I’ll definitely be trying this out, thank you again for your reply.

Regards
Tink

 

Oh No.... how sad after all that work.

 

It's looking a bit better later in the week and next, so your tom's will no doubt ripen ok.. Fingers crossed.

 

Blight is the big problem I find at this end of the year when the weather turns on us like it has.
If you don't get blight you still have up to two months for your toms to ripen.

 

My Manx Marvels took a hit from blight, they were being grown outdoors. Fortunately a couple had ripened prior so at least I've managed to save some seed.

Greenhouse tomatoes unaffected and surprisingly potatoes too (Cara).

 

I’m mopping up the last of my outdoor toms. All of them are blight resistant, crimson crush, nagina plum, cocktail crush and Oh happy day. They’ve all withstood any blight - my piccolo cherry toms which I grew from supermarket seeds, succumbed to blight overnight about a month ago. Put in my order to pennard plants for the same next year and also included Consuelo cherry toms which are sold as blight resistant. They’ve all performed well, however one of my nagina plum ended up in the greenhouse (really must do a better labelling job!) and they didn’t perform well in there with lots of them ripening before they had fully grown, leaving me with shrivelled fruit. Outdoor though they were fine!

I grew black pineapple beefsteak in the greenhouse but won’t do them again - very soft and squishy even though they taste good, back to the old faithful Black Krim next year!

 

Sowed a seed from a Morrisons tom during lockdown in April.
Quite pleased with the results.

 

WOW @pete they look Amazing, well done!

 

Not a complete loss after all.

 

From 31st August

I was beginning to think the same, but they're now doing better in September than in August.

The green outdoor tomatoes are now all harvested and are ripening better indoors than they were outside, where they were also being attacked by slugs, tomato moths, early blight and our dog. They may not all be ripening perfectly, but we have 6 hens (and that dog) that welcome rejects.

The garden polytunnel tomatoes are producing better than ever. As the lower ones have nearly all ripened I have started putting the slatted staging back around them. Botrytus on the leaves has slowed right down and the weather is looking good into early October.