Tomato Growing 2024

Not done any of mine yet. Usually start around now. Our windowsills are too small for indoor growing and not enough light to place near by so all will be started in the greenhouse.

I’ve got some seed saved from favourite supermarket tomatoes which did very well last year and also some two new beef varieties Bulesque and Costolutu Fiorentino.

The supermarket ones were little green-red ones, bigger than a cherry but smaller than the ‘usual’. I was surprised they did so well as I saw a TV piece (after sowing the seeds) about the supplier and they grow all their tomatoes hydroponically so did wonder how they would fare in a GH with my tough love feeding/watering regime

 

There’s always tomatoes seedlings popping up in my GH beds as I mulch with home-made compost so it should grow. I tend to weed mine out but am sure they would romp away if left to grow

 

We take such care and give so much cossetting to our tomatoes each year. I love doing it. But last year I had Sungold germinating everywhere, must have been thousands of seedling cropping up. Lesson learnt though, I'm careful there are no more tomatoes on their vines when I'm composting them in the autumn, plus I don't feed them to the wormery anymore either.

There certainly is 'abundance' in the world, if only I knew where the money trees are growing.

 

Grew a couple of Burlesque plants last year, they were great. We loved them sliced and flash fried in a bacon sandwich (my mouth is watering now just thinking of them). Hope to grow a few more this year.

The supermarket veg is interesting, I bought a red pepper about a week ago from Tesco and thought I'd plant a few of its seeds (didn't bother drying them either), they were up/germinated in just a couple of days. Makes me think if the variety was developed for speed of germination.

 

Ooh thanks, @Jenny_Aster , for the recommendation for Burlesque, sounds delicious.

I have some peppers in the fridge so might have a go sowing some of the seeds as well

 

The red cherry tomato seeds have come up but not the plum ones yet.

 

I sowed 3 types of tomato plus various flowers on Sunday. On Tuesday the marigolds were all up. Today I'm seeing action from 2 of the tomato types, "Outdoor Girl" has one just coming through and "Veranda Red" has 2 up.

 

This year I decided to grow only two varieties, Rio Grande and Golden Queen. Rio Grande is plum variety and last year I had excellent crop and it's very tasty, very good for making tomato sauce. Golden Queen is new for me.
Photos from the last year:

 

Microtomatoes went into 12 cm pots and on the windowsill.

Fat Frog, Blau Zimmertomate, Orange Dream and Tartufo.

 

I like the idea of Fat Frog @Alisa !
Do you find them good? I'm guessing it's a small variety, going by your heading. Your young plants look very healthy.

 

Thank you.
Yes, these varieties to be miniature, under 30 cm height. Growing for the first time, if they turn up well, maybe I grow more of those next year.

 

That's useful if you don't have a lot of space @Alisa . I might look into those for next year

I'm sure I've done that in the past as well @JKW. I expect you'll see a difference in the general growth habit as time goes on though. Fingers crossed!

 

I have four varieties up and on my windowsill, three new to me this year - Orangello, Goldkrone, and Oh Happy Days, and one left over from last year's seeds - Tiny Tim. Little bit lanky, but true leaves beginning to appear so I can address the lankiness when I pot on, and then maybe they can go into the greenhouse during the day, temperatures permitting, and back in the house at night.
Last year was mostly a disaster for my tomatoes, just couldn't get them to grow....I think it was the peat-free compost. This year I'm sticking to Sylvagrow as it's the only one I've tried that's fairly reliable.

 

I bought some mini san marzano plum tomatoes on reduced this morning. One of them is a bit squishy so I might sow a few seeds out of it and see what I get. Not sure whether it's one that would come true. Has anyone tried growing it from saved seeds?