Tomato Growing Thread 2012

Yay Bilbo - excellent !!

 

Nice one Bilbo......

 

As was pointed out by Scrungee in an earlier post in this thread, Sungold Select II are reputed to be a little unstable. This is certainly true with regards colour as some plants produced a more reddish tomato. However, taste seems to be the same for yellow or red - a less sweet version of Sungold F1.

 

:( four unripe tomatoes on my plants. Strong gust of wind. Mini greenhouse tips over despite being weighted with a paving slab. Boyfriend saves greenhouse. Two plants with the fruit have stems snapped. Balls.

I also discover they didn't have as big a root system as I expected. They did live inside too long, and were very leggy.

I am torn between not bothering at all next year, and seeing if what I've learnt this year yields any better results.

It's a lot of bother for four unripe tomatoes. Would be cheaper to buy at the supermarket.

Anything I can do with four unripe tomatoes? The smallest saddest batch of chutney ever?

(misery compounded by also discovering slugs making further devastation on plants, and that if I remove unsightly anti cat turding pointy sticks from bare border - bare because slugs have eaten everything i put in there - cat has not forgotten the spot and promptly turds there again)

 

Chin up Reetgood....just you wait till next year....your results this year may have been cheaper from a supermarket but you'll be quids in next year....we've all battled the weather and the threat of blight but i still maintain there is nothing that compares to a warm tomatoe straight from the GH ,sliced up with a bit of salt on, inbetween some nice bread with loads of butter instead of hard 'apple' like toms from SM that have been in cold storage ..forever...

 

The curse of those blow-aways :( I don't really have an answer I'm afraid, and I'm sorry to hear the story; what is needed is a decent greenhouse, but that needs significantly more money of course.

If you have the space for one, and are reasonably DIY-handy, then well worth asking / looking on Freecycle, and if you can go-and-get then also look on eBay within a reasonable range. With patience they come&go for 50-quid on eBay

Tomato plant in a greenhouse should yield around 4kg, and outdoors 2kg. It varies from year to year, with the luck of the weather-Gods, and perils like Blight etc., but factors like flavour, convenience of harvest, and knowing the provenance of exactly what chemicals, if any, have been used on the crop, are what I keep in the front of my mind when I have a poor crop, or total crop failure (second year running for me for Butternut squash ... I'm going to plant a relatively expensive windbreak hedge all round the veg plot to provide more shelter in order to try to improve that situation)

 

Thanks Loli and Kirsten!

I have a *very* small front garden - approx 10 paces by 12 paces of usable space. it's partly shaded. so tomatoes can only ever be a bonus rather than an actual crop. Which is partly why I'm wondering whether I am better focusing on other plants next year!

On the other hand... I could probably do a better mod on the mini greenhouse..get the plants outside earlier...better compost... I might end up with some actual ripe tomatoes...

 

You could always try some Cherry toms in baskets/containers....they need to be kept well watered but it's worth ago.....don't worry about the 'ripening bit' my old dad has been growing toms for 70 years...he's 84 now and he's thrilled to bits that his toms are starting to ripen given the weather this summer as far as i'm concerned he's the tomato growing champion....

 

Have you run over a "Luck Badger" Reetgood?

 

Haha, certainly a gardening luck badger!

Cherry toms..that could be a really nice idea for window boxes. Maybe tgat's the way forward next year!

 

Tumbling Toms? Never seen them, let alone grown them, but I believe they are good for hanging baskets, and thus maybe for Window boxes too?

 

National Trust don't even use window boxes.

 

They are so rock and roll.

 

Sorry Zigs, I think that looks really NAFF. But you are right - it does the job!!

 

Ah, ok. I had no idea about this 4 trusses malarkey. Noted for next year, many thanks Freddy. Can you recommend any varieties that do especially well outdoors (I have no room for a proper greenhouse sadly)? I have Gardener's Delight, Yellow Balconi (for basket growing which I'm going to try next year) and Sun Gold, but am happy to buy another variety if there's some that do well outdoors up North.