Tomato Growing Thread 2012

15 pkts x 15 seeds/pkt = 225 seeds, so allowing a small amount of wastage that'll only be 100 plants p.a. for the next couple of years which is a fraction of what I grow. I'm just getting rather fed up with blight wiping everything out this year, so I'll be trying Ferlines big time next year as the seeds are so cheap at the moment.

I don't hang about when something's cheap, but get straight in before the offer finishes and I regret not buying more. When T&M started selling Sungolds @ 20p/pkt early this year I went straight in with an order of 30 pkts, and shortly after that they introduced a max of 1 pkt/order (probably because of me!).

Tomato seeds will be OK for several years, but if germination rates start falling then pre-soaking in some Miracle Grow solution will help improve them.

 

Hiya Scrunge.

Just to add, I found Ferline NOT to be immune from blight. I grew them last year and they were probably the only one's that were totally unaffected, not the same this year though, sadly. I've heard reports of blight resistant potatoes (Sarpo) that were not so good on the taste front, not so with Ferline, imo. I've found that they have a really good flavour, and are of a good size. Oh, I just realised, there's me thinking you've never tried them before?

 

Ah, OK, I hadn't figured on you needing anything like that number of plants

100 tomato plants eh? ... By 'Eck !!

 

Can't get too much of a good thing...

 

OK, I *have* to ask then ...ONE HUNDRED plants PER ANNUM?

I reckon 2kg ?? per plant if outdoors and 4kg ?? per plant if in greenhouse ...

Blinking heck, that's heading for half a tonne if this is a greenhouse crop (actually, come to think of it, this is NOT an [amateur] greenhouse crop ... 100 plants isn't going to fit in an amateur greenhouse!!)

OK then, just a QUARTER of a tonne then ... still seems like ...ermmm ... "quite" a lot to me.

No doubt there is a logical explanation though. And I'm wondering if you "look" like a Tomato Freddy?

 

Don't forget that seeds saved from Non F1 toms (except currant & potato leaf varieties) will come true and save you loads of money. I always save a few of the first tomatoes (incase blight hits them later on) to ensure I get some free seeds for the next few years:



Having said they don't cross, should anything unusual appear I'll 'reserve' some toms for seed saving to check out how they turn out the next year. Out of my approx. 100 Koralik plants this year (all grown from saved seeds), none of which are affected by blight so far despite being the only toms that haven't been sprayed, one plant has much larger fruits than all the others (normal size on the left), same sprawling habit, slightly different leaves, same flavour (but slightly juicier due to bigger fruits) and the same blight resistance:



I've also have grown this tomato inside a polytunnel for the the last 2 years and it's the only plant in there that didn't get blight this year (no blight there last year). No idea what it is and as I haven't bought/grown anything like it before so it must be some obscure saved seed cross (that can happen very occasionally). I've yet to see what seeds saved from it will grow out like, as I forgot to save from it last year:

 

That made me laugh...

 

My koralik's this year have been really small,less than this size of an old half pence coin.

 

Running out of containers in our house. !

 

You need a passata machine:



+ a pasteuriser + loads of preserving jars.

When I googled "passata machine" a pic of some of my last year's passata (as posted on this forum) appeared 23rd on a google image search:

 

Interesting idea Scrungee. I did dry loads a couple years ago and still have a few jars stored away. Never thought of passata.

 

You could use a mouli-legume too, and if you cook the passata first you can preserve by bottling the passata (in jars).

The four tomatoes off my four plants may not actually ripen. I wish I had a glut. I keep telling people I am happy to bottle/preserve for them in return for a cut of the jars I make, but have done badly this year.

Last year I scored a massive bag of red gooseberries, rhubarb, apples...

This year I got more rhubarb, could still get apples but looks like that's it. Unless I knock on the door of the neighbour with what I think is a damson tree...

 

Yeah, but its a quarter-of-a-tonne of crop .... that's not "loads of preserving jars" its "loads of preserving jars"!!

 

Well, went out to the greenhouse this morning, and it seems the blight has moved in Do I need to consider changing the soil?