I may have too many tomatoes

When I didn't realise I could save seeds for next season, I planted two whole packets of tomato seeds. Yes, I now know that's rather a lot!

the first packet has all come up really well, second packet I don't think has done quite as well, but I still have about 20 germinated.

So today from the first packet (that I have no idea what type of tomatoes they are because they were a casualty of the pop up greenhouse falling over and they lost their label - I just know they were free!), I have potted up 42 seedlings, and I still have more left, but I've run out of pots.

How many of those can I expect to 'take'? Am I likely to lose a lot, or do i need to find a lot of friends who like tomatoes?

 

I`m reckoning you may save all of them..!
Question is.. have you the room for all those.?
or
It will soon be time to give some away.
It`s ok.. I do it year after year.. ..grow to many that is..

 

Start a Tomato Sauce business ASAP !

I rarely lose a Tomato plant, even as a seedling. Cucumbers, Melons, Onions, pretty much anything else I tend to lose a few, or even quite a lot (I reckon I lose 1-in-5 Onion seedlings)

We grow 15 Tomato plants in the greenhouse, they provide more than we can eat. I'm pretty slack I'm afraid, I chuck the spares on the compost heap if I can't easily find willing-mouths, but it does mean we have enough when we have a houseful for the weekend in the Summer. If you plant to bottle, chutney, and process yours then Enjoy!

 

I haven't a clue where I'm going to put them!
I'm thinking my mum will have a couple, MIL will take some, and then I'll just hand them out to random strangers in the street!

otherwise I'll be making a LOT of tomato pasta sauce.

 

I grow exactly the number I need. Been doing this miserliness for years.

This year I don't have enough Sweet Peppers and have had to buy some more at the garden centre. A quid-fifty each for a tiny seedling in a 3" pot! Luckily I found a tray of six for £2.50 ... but I'm not making that mistake next year and will be growing extra and giving spares away to mates ... actually, come to think of it, I'll make a fortune selling them to the garden centre!

 

I get mine from a friend i give him the seed he grow them for me as my blow away is always full with other seedlings. Don't worry about having too many i got a recipe this year for green tom chutney, also not bad lightly grilled with some haloumi chese delish and believe me i grow moneymaker and hundred and thousands but te latter never seem to make it into the kitchen either i eat them on way in to the kitchen or me bloody mother gets to them. Wish i had a greenhouse as my mate grow a climbing variety which grows right up the side of his greenhouse and half way over the top. Do ytou the best thing about home grown toms..........the taste. i've brought vine toms at the market or the supermarket but they just don't taste the same as your own.

 

Jings Rachel, that's a lot of tomatoes - enough for a factory I think.
I would choose the 6 best ones and grow them on. Sorry, but I think the rest are for the compost heap.
I think about 6 plants will give you all the tomatoes you can eat but if you have the space you could grow more and make passata etc.

 

I've planted 19 varieties this year (a couple of which are duplicated because I'm growing both bought & saved seeds):

Summersweet
Harbinger
Brasero (svd)
Red Alert
Sweet Million
Sweet Million (svd.)
Sungold (svd.)
Gardeners Delight
Rosada
Albenga
Koralik
Lossetto
Ferline
Legend
Balcony Yellow
Balcony Red
Tumbling
Beefsteak
Beefsteak (svd.)
Monster
Phil's Fantastic (svd)

But I do have passata machines, a preserving boiler for bottling/'canning'/pasteurising, a dehydrator and five freezers.

I normally only grow around 10 varieties, but trying a few more this year, especially the 'blight resistant' ones'.

 

Roadside stall, lob em on for 50p a plant, they'll get snapped up.

 

I can't possibly compost them! They're my babies! :lol
Plant sale it is then!