2014 Tomato Growing

A very impressive list there Cinnamon. Here's hoping we get some warm sunny days to bring on the flowers now,
to Gardeners Corner,
Jenny namaste

 

Whooop whoooop whoooop Freddy ,
so glad to read your happy comment and looking forward to seeing piccies of the garden ,
take it steady though my friend,
Jenny.

 

Cinnamon, what will you do with your massive crop? I see you saved much of those seeds so must have tomatoes figured out - and this is important to me because being in a hot climate I am about to have the crop ripen as a group. I will can some, but never dehydrated any before and that would be very interesting to me - but know nothing about it, like - is it important to select the right variety, pack dry or in olive oil - leave skin on or off, add salt or sugar or colour stabilizer, squeeze out seeds or not, (in a hot climate - or here anyway, the skins are tough), anything. I sort of haunt the processing the harvest thread.

 

Seed saving we do the lazy way.....dry on kitchen towel on fairly sunny windowsill and write the name of the variety on the kitchen roll. None of that fermentation lark...and good germination.

We usually grow lots of the same 3 varieties of cherry and then give away most of the harvest, but this year it should be spread out more. Last year we kept the thick-skinned plum tomatoes and Rambling Red Stripe (in a protected place outdoors) and were eating them until early November. This year my late deliveries will go into the greenhouse (I've booted the big boys out into the garden today) and I'll check which can be stored, so we should be eating fresh ones til late November.
This is my first time to grow on this scale, but we intend to slice and semi-dry the plums in the oven, brush with oil then shove them in the freezer (rather than oil due to theoretical risk of botulism with less acidic varieties). That was recommended by US smallholders.

 

Many thanks shiney, that's useful info.

JWK, I ordered 5 unusual varieties from Tomato Plant Direct online (board's given me a newbie warning and won't post the link) but they are late , hence will need coddling in the greenhouse to crop.

There's also a lady down the road from us selling her very vigorous extras at 50p-£1, which is where I got the Sungold F1, Tumbling Tom, Bloody Butcher and Outdoor Girl. Bargain for me, but no use to you.

 

Planted up a stubby pot with 2 x Tumbling toms and a taller, deeper pot with 1 x San Marzano. Put some swell gels in the bottom third of the compost for those "hot dry Summer days" - we hope,
Jenny

 

Link http://www.tomato-plants-direct.co.uk/ourshop/cat_670045-01-All-Tomato-Varieties.html

Quite collection, but at £1.70/plant (£8/collections of 5 plants) + £3.50 to £5.50 P&P on orders under £75 for plug plants they seem very expensive to me.

Plus they seem to be having issues getting orders processed:

June/July seems rather late to be starting with plug plant tomatoes, especially with some of those heirloom beefsteak tomatoes.

 

They look like good sturdy plants Woo

 

Excellent stuff here - cinnamon the bit about botulism and low acid is well said. Most tomatoes are sweet and not acidic enough for many forms of storage apparently - but the addition of vinegar or lemon will do for boosting it when canning. I will just go with the USA government recommended amounts per jar when canning. I wish I had a simple way to check ph - could you use a hand held ph meter for that (a very cheap one - I certainly could use one for gardening too).

An aside on freezing, I am in the time of freezing my blackberries and they just go into a bag and into the freezer and they all stay single and un-stuck. Blueberries too - no need for that freezing on trays first in my experience for those; which surprised me because I had done it the hard way before.

 

I think my 'Golden Pearls' are going to be a disaster this year. They are now 3ft tall and only one flower truss on each, they usually fruit in abundance. Lack of heat and sun may be, but I'm not holding out much hope for improvement.

 

Scrungee: yes, expensive and poor service thus far, but if/when I get my hands on white tomosol, Paul Robeson, ananas noir etc, I'll be a happy bunny. I bought 5 plants as they'll let you have that many without paying any p&p.

Colne: sounds like any excellent excuse to buy a new toy off Amaz..., sorry, invest £12 in some invaluable agronomic kit!