Tomato Growing Thread 2022

I brought the monster Lufichoise truss inside today, as many of the fruits were splitting with the rain. I've saved some seeds, in case anyone fancies growing it next year.

 

@eatenbyweasels the lufichoise has some beautiful fruit.

 

Thanks for your thoughts! The Gardener says the Roma is the best cropper of our very few varieties, closely followed by Ddraig Goch, which is best 'taster'. Roma better as a cooker particularly with some balsamic vinegar. Must agree re cooking or cooking ingredient anyway! No blight anyway and more productive since weather broke a little.
My salvias producing masses of seed. Most if not all will appear true, though of course there might be the 'different' hybrid amongst them, just like your tomatoes!!!

 

I moved Grushovka inside the greenhouse to help speed up ripening. It's only a metre high, but most of the fruits are the size of an average eating apple.

 

Ramalet Bombetta, Spanish hanging tomatoes

Wonder how long they keep ...

 

Wow...what a difference ! Thanks for showing me these . They will be so useful for the coming Winter. Nice little Christmas gifts for friends and neighbours....☆♡☆♡☆♡☆♡
All I am thinking is - how much did it cost to do this please?
Jenny namaste

 

Jenny namaste,

We followed dehydrating tomatoes with dehydrating chilis. Less moisture in chilis so it doesn't take so long. We have just put the dry chilis into jars ready for cooking at a later date.

Now the cost of the dehydrator with 6 trays was £59 (Amazon) and the model was Andrew James (thanks JWK). We added 4 more trays that upped the cost by £25. This is not essential. Of course you will need some sealed jars and some silica gel sachets around 5g each. These are cheap (approx £6 for 100). Look out for the food grade type and the moisture indicator beads in each sachet are a good idea. That's it.

I estimated that the electricity to dry my 5kg of tomatoes would cost in the region of £1.50p.

If you have any further questions then don't hesitate to ask.

Ademission

 

40 hours @400w X £0.4/unit(kwh) would be £6.40 plus VAT, £6.72,
£1.34 per kilo picked .Plus heat to boil water and dry, to sterilise the jars and lids

 

Infradig,

The 400w you quote is the maximum heat that the dehydrater can produce. When in operation, the unit can be heard to turn on and off with a duty cycle that holds the temperature at that selected on the display (60C). I timed the on/off duty cycle and also monitored the consumption on my power meter to get my figure of £1.50. As it ran for 40hours, some of the time was on Economy 7 which more than halved the rate during the nightime. I suppose, that if I was running the unit in a very cold environment the cost would be a little higher but not to the level you specify.

The cleaning of the jars didn't cost anything extra to normal as they were cleaned in the dishwasher with other items.

I think I will stand by my original estimate.

Ademission

 

Points accepted !
Better get them all done before October.........

 

Nothing particular to add about my poor toms! They are still struggling but have not given up yet - nor have I!

 

Once i have harvested all my toms and cleaned out the plants, can i use the soil for other stuff, or do i need to dig out and replace it before growing winter stuff???

 

Assuming that your tomatoes are free from whitefly, greymould ,aphid etc, there is no reason to. It may be a good time to clean the glass, to maximise light. In days of yore, one would fumigate, either with smoke candles or Jeyes Fluid, but now its frowned upon (by some.)
You may need to feed the new crops according to your assessment, and possibly renew if tomatoes are to be replanted next year.