Tomato Growing Thread 2022

Hi,

Was looking for one that perhaps gave more regular pickings than just the end of season but Honeymoon as @JWK suggests looks like a good compromise, so will give it a try.

Always remember Jim McColl from Beechgrove saying it was a waste of time growing beefsteak in the far north, suppose Yorkshire is really in the middle for growing success ...?
Did grow his favorite cherry Rosella one year but G.Delight tasted better to us.

We have grown Crimson Crush and Tumbling Tom outside in the soil and they always tasted better than greenhouse ones, do not know if thats down to the soil and direct sun vs a more peaty mix we use in the greenhouse tubs or the difference in watering as the outdoor ones rather more irregular but little blosson end rot.

 

I'm a Rosella Cherry fan, I must say. Haven't grown GD in a while. I lost my late dad's own strain of GD and I'm not sure I want to try it again as I read it's gone off the boil a bit.

If you want a flat, ribbed, tasty tomato that will produce early and keep on going, you could downscale on fruit size and try Santorini. I got my seeds from a home seed saver in Greece and had doubts about how this lover of volcanic ash would cope in a pot of bought compost in a Yorkshire greenhouse. To my surprise, it was the first thing in the greenhouse to fruit and the first to ripen.

 

Was a bit dissapointed with the Rosella we grew, though perhaps we should have tried it another year as with our changable weather it can make a big difference.

As mentioned just about to start off @JWK 2005 Gardeners Delight seeds which he was good enough to send us a couple of years ago, as you mention the more recent ones seem to have a poorer taste.

With your and @JWK suggestions think we will have a good selection to go at, thanks both.

 

Sounds like you have plenty of options in mind, now, but for the benefit of other readers, I'll add to my list of observations in a separate post. Happy sowing. K

 

From my 2021 growing notes. (Hopefully) helpful observations for those still choosing what to sow. Weights, where stated, are typical of the fruit I harvested. Location: East Yorkshire. Conditions: vile. All plants are cordons unless otherwise stated. Greenhouse photo shows Aunt Madge's, Indigo Rose, Yellow Pear and Ruby Falls. Close-up photo shows Brandywine Cherry. Foody shot is Black Russian with plant-based "Camembert" on fresh ciabatta. And it was goooood!

G = greenhouse, O = outdoors.

Brandywine Cherry. G. Beautiful, productive, but fell short on the promised flavour. It's also very big for a "cherry" at 50 - 60g

Jaune Flamme. G. Went down with blight before some others but the flavour was decent. 40 - 50g

Aunt Madge's. G. A late developer but ended up with a decent crop of well-flavoured little red plums. A bit prone to splitting.

Scotland Yellow. G. Magnificent trusses of 50 - 70g round fruit. Paste texture. Tasted of.... nothing.

Indigo Rose. G. Stunning black fruit, slow to ripen to red. Flavour was pleasant but very faint.

Sweet Casaday. O. Decent production of 20g striped cherry plums. Flavour only okay.

Lylia Cerisette. O. Small red cherry with good flavour.

Pink Boar. G. This was supposed to be salad sized but it was a >100g average flat beef. Possibly mislabelled. Couldn't get the fruits to ripen off the plant.

Ruby Falls. G. Supposed to be short jointed, thus compact plant. I couldn't see any difference. Med/large, dark red , slightly flattened cherry. Good flavour. Prone to splitting.

Orange Banana. G. Reasonably productive paste plum. Not much flavour eaten fresh. Better sauced.

Moskvitch. O. I think the cold setting of the fruit caused this plant to give just a few oversized, fused fruit. Had to harvest green and ripen indoors. Very good flavour.

Black Russian. G. Not very productive, size varied a lot. Very good flavour.

Ukrainian Purple. G. Reasonable production, chunky paste plum, decent flavour.

Chadwick Cherry. O. Triffid. Slow to set first fruit but very productive once it got going. 20-25g. Withstood blight well. Flavour not up to the hype.

Ola Polka. O. Bush. Mush.

Jen's Tangerine. G. 50 -60g. Decent production. Taste not up to hype.

Red Zebra. G. Good production. Varied fruit side and type. Blight took it fast, Never ripened.

Rambling Red Stripe (trailing). O. Bullets.

Sakura F1. G and O. Decent F1. Consistent trusses of good sized cherries. Don't recall the flavour so neither brill nor a spitter. Didn't get blight.

Lizzano F1. (trailing) O. Brave little soul, only lost one limb to blight. Small cherries, okay flavour.

Sungella. O. Sowed very early to test a pack of old seeds. One plant succumbed early to blight, but another, planted a few miles away. didn't and chucked out loads of early, tasty fruit.

Baby Boomer F1. G/O. Bush. I found black spots on the leaves and immediately evicted it from the greenhouse and picked off affected leaves. After which it thrived and didn't get blight. Okay tasting cherries. A bit small to be bothered with.

Harbinger. O. I remembered this being really tasty last time I grew it, but nostalgia isn't what it used to be. Maybe just the weather.

Rosella. O. Best flavoured cherry of the year for me.

Bloody Butcher. O. Early, productive, tasty, isn't here for your nonsense. Short, so allow multiple stems for best results.

Stupice. O. Very similar to BB. Slightly earlier, taste perhaps not quite as good, but you'll be so happy to taste fresh, home grown tomatoes again.

Blondkopfchen. O. Multiflora. Very productive and quite sweet but a pain in the backside to harvest. Children will enjoy "grazing" on the tiny fruit.

Floridity F1. O. Small red plum. Reliable, tasty and productive. If I had to choose just one F1, this is it.

Pink Grape. O. Can't fault it on productivity but the taste is nothing to write home about.

Santorini. G. A surprise success. Lumpy little flatties with some odd shapes. Tasty. Mine were sown very early because I'm impatient.

Maskotka. Bush. O. Didn't taste it because I gave the plant to a neighbour but she said it had plenty of fruit and tasted good.

Yellow Pear. G. This was labelled as "Golden Cherry. I got it in a seed swap, so somebody slipped up, somewhere. A late developer but eventually gave big trusses of little yellow pears. Semi paste texture. Early flavour bland but then got much better.

 

All my greenhouse toms are in pots, so yes, it was a smooth eviction, especially with baby Boomer being a bush type so not strung up to anything.

Yes, I've been perusing the old threads over my lunch. Also been adding my latest tomato and pepper seeds to my spreadsheet and checking to see if I'd missed any... whereupon I came across some Gardener's Delight seeds, marked "Carter's, 2010"! Was this before the rot set in, do you think? I've just read some old threads pertaining to the subject.

 

Very interesting

What size pots do you use out of interest?

Also has anyone grown many of the newish dwarf tomatoes from the dwarf tomato breeding project? I've got dwarf parfait to try this year, they were freebie seeds

 

Hi, Hanglow.

I use mostly 30 litre pots (the ones with handles, often sold as potato growing pots) for my cordons, two plants to a pot. For bushes, I use buckets or planters, averaging 14/15 litres, one plant to a pot.

Dipping my toe into dwarf plants for the first time this year. I've sown just one Dwarf Velvet Night.

 

I'm trying dwarfs this year too: Purple Heart, Shadow Boxing and Tasmanian Chocolate.

 

Off to Aldi 10am tomorrow to pick up 2 x £20 heated propagators in their Special Buys section for my tomato seed sowing. Already have two heated propagators, a medium bought new with birthday vouchers and an old large one that was my partners fathers.

Sowing tomorrow;

Nagina Plum - blight resistant “medium sized, plummy red & sweet yet tangy”

Consuelo - blight resistant - indeterminate - “juicy red cherry”

Cocktail Crush - blight resistant - “cocktail sizen Tom (medium) cordon”

All from Pennard.

The propagators will be in the workshop by the window as I don’t have any power in the small Halls greenhouse. Also waiting for OH to lay the base for the aluminium greenhouse and put it up, but that won’t be until Easter so I won’t be sowing more than four of each type.

 

I'd love to try some of the seed. Thank you. I'd be interested to compare the results with Zuchertraube, which I've seen linked, in online discussion, to GD. Would you like anything by way of swaps? I have quite a selection.