THE TOMATO GROWING THREAD 2018

so my good neighbor, Chuck, texts me. Hey we are gone for a week, help yourself to any tomatoes in our garden. every years he does that. nice to have fresh tomatoes and free and without the work. I do bake him some dessert stuff off and on, not necessarily in return but because his wife is not a baker.

 

Popped home today ( away on doggy business ) to find a whole truss of ripe "Gigantomos" hopefully Carol will have taken a piccy, not huge BUT BIG!

 

Tried my first Crimsom Crush for lunch today and found the taste very average, plus obviously late cropping. The outdoor grown plants have not thrived and will produce less than one pound/plant with very small trusses of very variable sized tomatoes. Polytunnel grown ones will produce about 2lbs or perhaps 3lbs absolute max of far more uniform fruits, not because their trusses are much bigger, but they are much taller. Brix 6.5.

Wont bother outdoors next year. Might not bother indoors either.

 

I've given up on MM, if you don't already have seeds PM me.

 

My new plum varieties are struggling with BER.

Crimsom Crush is a disappointment.

Red Figs are suffering from greenback.

Cherry Falls and T&M Tomatoberry are insipid.



Apart from my 'big' tomatoes (grown for a bit of fun), my eating toms next year have been narrowed down to just Suncherry Premium, Orange Paruche and Red Alert, possibly with some polytunnel Shirlies to bulk up crops after the Red Alerts have finished

 

I just wonder why everyone seems to be growing really weird varieties of tomato
Admittedly I've never grown Magic Mountain before, only bought a plant from the local nursery because it said it was blight resistant, probably because it doesn't have loads of leaves to hold the dampness.
My usual, and one I've been growing for years is F1 incas, but it has lots of leaves so is blight waiting to happen.
The common varieties, IMO, are common for one reason, they grow well in our climate.
So some of these weird ones are bound to be pretty disappointing I would think

And I'll still say its the growing conditions rather than the variety 50% of the time that makes the difference, grow them in a greenhouse with artificial feeding and you get pretty much the same stuff as you can buy in the shops

 

you are better off using some seaweed

 

I was late to the game this year as we didn't get the greenhouse built until way into the season. I have about 10 tom plants that are all in the greenhouse. A few varieties are in the mix from cherries (that I planted from seed) to some more specialist varieties that were donated as seedlings.

I've got a lot of trusses on the plants and quite a lot of green fruits growing. I've had a few ripe tomatoes from a Purple Bumblee.

The question I have is, what should I be doing now? I've topped all the plants now to concentrate on the existing trusses. Should I be limiting the number of trusses to speed things up? Should I be removing more leaves (I've already removed lower leaves and thinned them out a bit higher up the plant)? Should I stop worrying and just see what happens? The cherries I planted are behind and only have a few small fruits that have started on them.

I'm based in Surrey and the greenhouse gets good sun so the plants should be protected a little.

Any advice would be appreciated.