THE TOMATO GROWING THREAD 2018

It’s THE best feeling isn’t it!!

 

100% in agreement here...so much more juice and taste, the supermarket varieties seem so uniform and bland and need added garnish to make them eatable...

 

IF buying supermarket tomatoes, I've found 'Orange Rapture' from Tesco to be one of the tastiest commercial varieties. They use a made up name for them as they're actually Oranjestar and the seeds aren't available to the public. Oranjestar – Sakata Wholesale Vegetable Seed

P.S. Saved seeds do not grow true from these tomatoes.

 

those are the only supermarket toms I eat when I do not have my own

 

Piccolo are quite nice too. Did save some seeds to try growing some but a rogue snail ate all my seedlings

 

Use Ash and Cinders from your BBQ etc around the base of the plants.. this is an excellent slug and snail deterrent...they need damp slime to glide around the very fine ash dries this up and they cant get over it...

 

Got my first Hana Mini Cucumber and a couple more Tomatoes for my salad.

 

Oh dear, my monster "Big Zac" has started ripening thus losing weight BUT it is BIG!

Experiment with growing "Manx Marvel" as a "determinate" proving to be a waste of time, fruitful yes but very small fruits.

Gigantomo, my quad megabloom didn't set but I have a truss that weighs well in excess of 2kg (had to use thicker wire and reinforce the greenhouse struts), if they taste OK, maybe I'll try them again.

Not too sure though how next season will pan out, I need a hernia op and there's a long waiting list, I'll get as much prep work done as possible before then.

Then 6 weeks, feet up with Carol waiting on me hand and foot?
I'll be lucky to get 6 minutes!

 

First two tomatoes taken off the plants, one eaten the other left for another day. Still have no idea what variety they are, but the person who ate the first one is still with us some 10 hours later.

 

Not tomato related but can anyone tell me if you have to pinch out growing tip on and F1 Hana Cucumber plant in greenhouse? I have absolute loads of fruit forming on it being an all female variety. Think I'll grow this one next year as didn't have much luck with my first one.

 

Some of today's.. latah doesn't make it home

 

Plum " Roma "

 

It sounds like green is the rage in my garden, this season..
In my inexperience, with all this unusual sunshine, I was hoping to see some red tomatoes in July already, but we spotted only a few out of several hundreds.. Same with peppers..
I guess they will get there eventually, but for the moment only courgettes and cucumbers have been giving me some satisfaction (actually, nearly too much, we are a bit swamped with courgettes). And blackberries and raspberries, which I guess do not count, given they would be fruiting well with no help at all anyway..

 

Picking lots of Crimson Crush now and my crimson cherries are starting too. Urbikany are also producing. And had my first black krim cheese and tomato toastie last night! Still waiting on my Black Russian but there’s some colour in them finally!

 

I've been picking Black Russian for a few weeks, not many but they are big and tasty. Mine are prone to blossom end rot, unfortunately.