Tomato Growing Competition 2012

"delicious" now germinated too, keeping all the seedlings on a south facing windowsill........
Excuse my ignorance BUT how come I've got 3 seedlings from ONE "delicious" seed? I know my eyesight is failing but it's surely NOT that bad? :( Is it? :'(

 

You'd better ask Miraflores about that. There was only one seed of her, but 2 plants sprang from it:D

 

...and the egg was called "Zyg" for short...do I have to worry?
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could i have some of the seeds if i pm you my address? i have just the spot to grow them in...

 

Be afraid

If I ever get Goats, I would name them Zygoat, Footnote & Goat that is This Goat.

 

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I've got the following 4 from above who've requested Phil's Fantasic seeds to date. If you PM me address I'll send them out next week:

 

I did intend to post a piccy or two of my leading contender plants but MY computer has died and I'm still trying to get to grips with my daughters PC. Will post piccies as and when I can, Big boy leading the way from Delicious at the mo :LOL

 

Way behind as usual.

Just got my Big Zac seeds, came with some free French Dwarf Pongo bean seeds.

Came from a place called Saltburn in Cleveland. Anything to do with Clueless 1 Dave?

 

Yay, one of my Big Zog Seeds has germinated

 

Big Zac are an F1 tomato and unless you got them from Totally Tomatoes in the USA (the sole producer of the hybrid seeds and they don't ship abroad) they are almost certainly F2+, but loads of people save & re-save 'Big Zac' seeds. The trick is to select the most vigorous plants for growing on. Some people are growing F7+ 'Big Zacs' and are getting bigger toms than from the geniune F1 seeds.

An early plant may give you more chance of a megabloom (fused blossom) that will produce a big tom. As bigger toms are supposed to come above the 1st truss, early sown seeds will enable 1st (& 2nd) trusses to be removed and still leave time to get one a big tom on the higher ones, so I'm sowing at intervals. As there's not a specific date for the weigh off, there wont be a problem with a very early giant tomato rotting before the big day.


P.S. My first seeds germinated a couple of days ago.

 

Doesn't say anything about F1 or 2 on the packet, cheeky so and so's, they weren't cheap either.

All of mine have come up now, thinking about a tomato sauce factory

 

Exhibition seeds do state "open pollinated" on their website, but as I've said above you should still get some plants as good (or even better?) from seeds saved from F1 Big Zacs. Too many people dismiss saving seeds from F1 toms, but that's how new varieties are developed/stabilised - there's loads of tomato growers in the USA collaborating in producing non F1 Sungolds, some even going for a purple version!

This is where to get 'real' Big Zac' seeds from (if somebody can get them sent through the post): http://www.totallytomato.com/dp.asp?pID=00087&c=41&p=Big+Zac+Hybrid+Tomato

 

For all you expert tomato growers...whats your honest opinion on f1 Beefmaster toms please...

 

I'm growing Beefmaster as my large variety this year.
I have grown them before with with mixed results to be honest. While the flavour was ok (although not exceptional) the flower set was rather erratic in cool conditions and they are rather odd-shaped and lumpy. They are quite a 'fleshy' tomato which makes them good for slicing.
I've also tried Big Boy and Super Marmande as a comparison, both of which were slightly more productive in terms of number of fruit, but I'd say Beefmaster scores higher for flavour and size.