Tomato Growing 2024

Today's "Outdoor Girl" pickings. Usually the OG tomatoes are smooth and golfball sized, but each plant has produced several knobbly monsters like the ones below. Definitely wouldn't find these in the supermarket!

 

My Sungolds are coming on well now. Sizing is more like normal, after the very small ones I got a few weeks ago, so as long as they keep ripening steadily, it should be ok. I can always bring the trusses inside, which I always need to do with the last lot anyway. They're just slower this year.

 

Interesting that each one is fairly evenly divided into 4 sections and they are all of a similar size. Most lumpy, bumpy beefsteaks are randomly wrinkled and divided. Maybe extreme temperature changes, uneven watering or both caused it if the rest of the fruit is now growing normally.

 

I've been pretty consistent with the watering. I've got some directly in the ground, some in a planter without a reservoir, and others in planters with a reservoir that's kept topped up. All have produced a few like this.

Maybe it's to do with the one and only brief heatwave we had ...

 

As the fruit affected are growing in different locations it sounds as if you are right. Tomatoes do not like extreme heat, they are inclined to shudder to a halt in growing when it is very hot unexpectedly. That would affect the develop the fruit, then start it again. Hence the malformations.

 

My outdoor tomatoes in Dordogne, SW France have been slow to get going and the first ones had tough skins but I think that was because we were in the UK for most of July and CB the handyman didn't water enough. Now they are producing steadily, apart from the Noire de Crimée which has only produced 2 small fruits. Usually they are big and dark purple. Lemon Boy was the first to ripen and the best tasting. Ananas with big orange fruits and a great flavour have produced five fruit so far and there are lots to come. I gave up growing that at my last house because I only ever got 2 or 3 tomatoes off a plant.

@Goldenlily26 I haven't noticed tomatoes not liking heat, they do well when it's hot here. I had a greenhouse at my last house in SW France. It got very hot, despite ventilating, and the tomatoes did better than the outdoor ones.

 

Going to have to start preserving soon

I've had to pick a lot just as they start to blush as it's so humid in the greenhouse, getting a lot of mold now, so I'm not risking them to ripen up fully, apart from the sungolds. Outside nagina, fantasio and rote murmel are not showing any signs of blight yet

 

Lucky you @Hanglow! I’ve had blight on my outdoor tomatoes for a couple of weeks. Keep hoping some of them will resist but not looking hopeful…. On the plus side my tiny greenhouse of just five plants is producing superb Noire de Crimee, Big Daddy and Cuor di Bue, i picked two of the Cuor this morning that weighed 530 g between them. Not all bad.

 

I think we need a new rating button for "impressed" !

 

Well done! Lucky you. I am still tying in, removing side shoots and tapping flowers. Fruit is setting now and beginning to fatten up. Nowhere near ready to pick yet. No sign of colouring.

 

I am trying to beat the blight, I have loads of tomatoes now all ripening well, but the blight is catching up with them.

 

I don't grow these myself but a friend let me taste a Sparta tomato and it was very tasty. Supposed to be an improvement on Shirley. If you want a non F1 my brother in law swears by Golden Sunrise which is about the same size.

 

Yippee, a couple of our tomatoes are finally beginning to ripen!

 

Well done @Butterfly6