Tomato Growing Thread 2021

Super, still going plants in October

Mine gone long time ago.
One of the reasons for failed year for me could be the compost in the greenhouse - it could have dried out last winter, I didn't improve or water it in spring.
This year I watered multiple times now, added old horse manure and sowed phacelia.

 

Today's picking of polytunnel cherry toms, red are Suncherries, others mainly Orange Paruche and some Sungolds. Now I'm not watering them they're not getting as big as earlier in the season. Have to be careful picking as the truss stems are getting brittle.

Looks like there might be no frost until November, so maybe several more pickings like this, and the ripening indoors at home from trusses cut off the night before the first frost.



Lost another plant to botrytus.

 

Wow, in October !!! 2 boxes. I'm still learning.

 

37 Plants with at least 25 cherry tomatoes on each capable of ripening before end October = 925 more to come.



My biggest tomato now tapes 3lbs 2ozs, but appears to be lightening in colour which happens just before a blush appears and it stops growing.

 

Question
I see tomatoes are free growing (not in pots). How do you treat/improve soil between the seasons? Do you change it fully/partially?

 

Both, plus use crop rotation and pots. I used to have three 3 x 6m polytunnels, but have moved plots and now have one of them in my garden, one in the process of being being erected at my new plot and one to go back up next year. I also have an additional 3 x 7.6m tunnel at my plot which is where the pic above was taken. Thats a total of 76.8m2 (25.6 × 3m) under cover, but each tunnel has a 600mm wide full length central path with 1.2m wide beds either side, so a total planting area of 61.4m2 (25.6 × 1.2m x 2), and if each cordon tomato required 0.6 x 0.6m there would be space for 170 plants.

I have changed soil in beds but it's a huge task, also dug out pits and backfilled around plants with MPC, grown in pots, plus practiced crop rotation, including letting polytunnel borders lie fallow when they have demountable staging erected over them with overwintering, spring sown/summer cropping stuff growing on it, followed by pots of autumn planted bulbs for cut flowers/planting spring containers, and I also store my bags of compost underneath it. As my 39 cordon cherry toms are adequate for our needs, my current'ish setup would allow this number with a 3 year rotation, and from next year a 4 year rotation.

Nothing much grown under cover in pots this year as the derelict 3 x 7.6m tunnel I have taken on and recovered/refurbished hasn't had toms growing in it for many years, so I've filled 70% of it with tomatoes. But I did grow potatoes in containers in 2/3 of the remaining 30%, half in big 40L ones on the ground and numerous seed spuds for next year in 10L pots on the staging.

 

Plenty of space to take care off and rotate cultures and get decent amounts of toms.

 

As my biggest tomato is starting to show some colour, meaning the seeds will be viable after it continues to ripen at home, I have cut it.



The girths in cm on 3 axes were 50.5 x 42.5 x 43.5 = 93,362 ÷ weight factor of 66 = 1,415g = 3lbs 2ozs.

And the weight was



So estimate was 1.5 oz's/3% out.

 

Tragically I am surrounded by potato fields which were not rotated this year. That and the weather meant blight hit them early, the green was cut off the tops the the potatoes left to rot. Pretty much everyone I know in Jersey was blighted badly in their spuds and tomatoes this year - whatever measures they took. It was a catastrophe. Old farmer next door said that spraying with some copper based solution was the answer - but that just doesn't feel great in 2021. And clearly even that didn't work this year: the local farmers are in no way averse to a few chemicals.

I had a few plants that made it - by cutting off affected parts of the plants aggressively as they showed: the best were Sunrise Gold - using seed from last year's crop which was epic in scale.

Don’t know what to do next year: try (in a new spot)? Don’t try?

just to say: I think this thread is fantastic… hadn't appreciated that the same variety could change materially from one set of seeds to another. To be investigated. Along with the most blight resistant varieties available perhaps.

 

Thank you: yes - I've just had a read. Sounds like either one uses Bordeaux Mixture - which includes a toxic (to humans, livestock, fish and earthworms among others) copper compound, accumulating up the food chain - or try the blight resistant varieties but they only go so far.

I'm not keen on the chemical approach but that might mean no tomatoes which is pretty sad. And given what we have here in Jersey in the way of intensive potato and tomato farming, blight is perhaps just always going to be here.