2016 Tomato Growing

hi Sheal I have given up on Ailsa Craig they are great plants with loads of tomatoes but no taste with exactly the same growing conditions as other varieties with loads of flavour.
I am writing this as I had tons of beautiful looking tomatoes which I could not give away to family and friends after they tried them.
Attached is a pic of Ailsa Craig looks great but no taste. Alicante is not much better. the other pic is beefmaster.
I got sucked in by the Ailsa Craig are great hype. After talking to experienced gardeners and tomato growers I found out they are not very well thought of by those people, ask Kristen.
I saw a post from lolimac about beefmaster a F1 beefsteak tomato rating them 9 9 9 in the taste/cropping thread. Lolimac is in Yorkshire so I thought if they are ok there I am not much further north.
I grew beefmaster last year they were prolific and the taste was superb and lived up to lolimac's rating. They are on my grow list this year again, I live on the north east coast and was surprized that a beef tomato would do well here but they did.
Just my take they may be Ok for you
Regards Alex

 

Thanks for the info Alexmac. Oh well, you win some you lose some. I've already ordered the seeds so it's to late to change my mind. If I don't like them I'll give them to my daughter for chutney. I don't like big tomatoes, in fact I'm more inclined to go the other way, I actually prefer the smaller one's or cherry tomatoes and I'll be growing those too.

 

Thanks for the kind offer @fat controller but I'm trying to keep things to a minimum this year in case I have to leave them all behind. In fact I'm away to Scotland again in a few months so not sure yet how things are going to survive with my daughter's attention, or possible lack of it, she's a busy person.

 

My purple calabashes were prone to cracking last year. Lost a lot of fruit that way.

I think the blue ones are just like the 'Indigo' series of tomatoes i.e. purple-black when unripe and ripen with a tinge of red or yellow.

PS, the colour is in the skin; they are bog-standard tomato coloured inside.

 

'Roma' tomatoes are coming through.

 

I know. Just thought I would experiment. It does say can be sown from January. Its worth a try for early toms. Will wait & seehow they get on.

 

hi canyfullpots
My first sowings are in as well, I grow mine in the conservatory with night temps of around 14 C. They stay in conservatory until end of April. I use an old aquarium light until the days are longer in march to supplement the light and stop them getting leggy. This way I get my first toms end of May.
Good growing
Regards Alex

 

I'm thinking of sowing mine earlier this year. But will have to do mine on the kitchen windowsil as my light levels in the greenhouse are too low this time I reckon for them to germinate successfully.

What are the benefits of sowing them so early? I did it one year and then the plant sulked for a few weeks when I finally did put them out in the greenhouse and so the fruiting period worked out to be roughly the same.