Tomato Growing Thread 2022

i just took two nice ripe toms off the vine.....set them down for a photo and gone before i could click the button. The Mrs chomping on them like freshly picked apples.

Have to wait again now lol

 

YAY....
at last they are starting to change colour
Jenny namaste

 

@Glynne Williams thanks glynne, all of those varieties resonate with me. I wish some of the lesser known ones might have seen it through the years. I think even the well known ones have probably changed a bit, I don't know. It would be great to find an old seed packet from way back in a garage sale or something.

I love the expression the movement of seed back to seed.
I can just picture me saying to the kids, it's not all about you, it's about your genetics....

 

Thanks @JWK I tried one today and the skin is thicker and they are quite fleshy. Guess in their normal environment they have adjusted to cope with water stress or rather lack of it. I am now maxing out on storage and there are still many coming through each day so I think I shall just cut the trusses when ready and see if I can store in the garage.

My favourite is still barbastro closely followed by ayerbe and Cherokee purple at least for slicing on a burger or as part of a salad.

My own cross is still rapidly taking over, the fruit is just a nice largish cherry with a touch of anthocyanin, not as much as I would like thou, but nothing special but the vine is humongous. I dread to think what the root system is doing.

Edited: I thought I'd add a shot, the stem is thick and half way up it chose to double stem. Now over six foot high I trailed it along as best I could and it's still kicking out fruit with trusses with at least 12 or more.

 

@Jenny namaste once they start they won't stop! It's a lovely moment when they all start triggering off each other.

 

@JWK fascinating jwk. . Love to know more !

 

Any thoughts on ripening?
Its often said you need to get the sun to ripen the fruit, but my Incas, being a bush variety, are ripening completely covered by leaves and other fruit, I'm having to poke around to get to the ripe ones underneath.

I tend to think they will start to ripen when ready and its not direct sunlight that gets the process going, after all the old method of ripening left overs at the end of the season was to wrap them up and put them in a drawer.
No doubt by putting them in a drawer it concentrated the ethylene gas, which would then keep the ripening process going in the dark. No sunshine needed.

 

I tend to strip off leaves as the plant forms fruit but maintain some canopy at the then top of the plant. I guess the only thing you might have to watch out for is sun scald on the tomatoes but I'm not sure we really get that intensity in this country. What am I saying, except this year! I wouldn't do it with small semi determinate so much , I suppose just gauge what you are doing to the plant and make sure you don't over do it, it still needs leaves to convert light into sugars but you don't want it to be a leaf factory. I'm with monty...

 

The only leaves i strip off are the ones at the bottom of the plant turning yellow and i have never had ripening difficulties in over 60 years. I have been eating tomatoes since may.
I always use a high Potassium fertiliser

 

Another bicolour beefsteak coming through, this is joya de Oaxaca , a Columbian Mexican heirloom tomato. Fruity taste and internal red, orange,yellow marbling.

 

Lufichoise plus string, still fighting gravity.