Tomato Growing Thread 2022

That reminds me of two years ago, I live in a bungalow that is on a private estate within the grounds of three care homes the only way to the estate is to enter the care home grounds drive around the perimeter road to the bungalows, the whole complex is surrounded by a seven foot high chain link fence which can not be seen as it surrounded by trees and shrubs so the bungalows are also out of sight.
I have a victoria plum tree which was laden with fruit one Thursday evening my daughter was visiting with the grand daughters and we picked a bag of fruit for them to take home , the fruit was nice and ripe so i thought i will have to pick them all. There was so much fruit that evening I looked up recipes and thought about preserving some.
Next day about lunch time i went into garden to pick the plums only to find the tree completely bare not a single fruit remaining, whoever it was did a great job of harvesting as there was not even a plum lying around on the ground

 

I've had quite a lot of stuff nicked from the allotment, so now I only keep rusty tools there and pick produce ASAP. The bloody pigeons still annoy me more though

 

The glut of tomatoes is starting to build. I really wanted to "invest" in the dehydrator mentioned earlier but couldn't so a small outlay of £20 and some trays for my instapot megaboy and some dehydrating on the go. I tried some early dried tomatoes and knock your socks off. I love fresh and the flavour but wow is that so intense on drying....

 

Sevryuga, a pink oxheart from russia. Bit uneven ripening.

Blight has struck my outside tomatoes again, I've removed three and will have to remove the rest, apart from crimson crush which is looking fine atm

 

At least I'm assuming this is late blight, correct me if I am wrong

 

Fish Lake Ox Heart also just coming through. @Hanglow must be an oxheart thing, they seem to take a long time to ripen.

 

It does look like it to me, sorry.

 

Yeah. None of the tomatoes look close to ripe either. "Aurora", an early determinate sold by real seeds seems the most susceptible as I already removed one of them a couple of weeks ago. I have removed a few green tomatoes from the plants and put in a covered bowl with an apple to see if they can ripen up. I'm not too fond of green tomato chutney, still have a few jars from about 5 years ago

 

Now here's a thought! Whilst out planting a red clematis with white roses on an archway (the soil was like a concrete mixture with grey cement!) We found a red tomato in one of containers! So I thought I'd photograph it to show you. It's Roma thanks to Gardeners World magazine! Didn't have a 50p piece though!

 

I'll swop you a 50p for a tenner

 

He's just showing off.

 

A couple of slow to ripen varieties
Copper river to the left and right of the ripening fish lake Ox hearts


And the ramalet de colgar considering they are small size

 

I was watering my son's plants today & I had a closer look at his tomatoes. He has 2 plants of 'Gardener's Delight' that I gave him. One has one tomato nearly ripe but 7 trusses of toms of all sizes. The other plant is also doing very well but for some reason has only half that number of trusses! He has just one plant he actually bought but is a different variety. It has bigger toms & there are some on the first truss ready to be eaten. It also has more trusses with fruit though I didn't count them.

I was more interested in the ones I gave him as I wanted to compare his with mine. Needless to say his plants are far in advance of mine not having suffered "wilt" & having to start all over again. His 2 plants don't seem to have suffered from burnt leaves either like mine which has set them back another 2 weeks. My plants should be at the very least like his. I have a few fruits & a few flowers but he will get more fruit out of 2 plants than I will get out of my dozen (well, really 10 now as the extreme heat killed off 2 plants that never really recovered from the "wilting")
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This is one of the 2 plants I gave my son. I took the photo this afternoon.
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Amazing comparisons! Obviously different situations, and, presumably, different skill sets? Really the only true comparison is of similar plants, the ones you grew? Frankly though it's what caused the 'wilt'?