Tomato Growing Thread 2022

No whitefly, afids or mould….so will add a little bit of new compost just to refill the beds before putting in the lettuce, onions etc etc

Then i will be replanting toms next, but in the opposite side of the greenhouse beds.

 

The Sungolds are ripening at last,
Jenny namaste

Jenny namaste

 

I will be feeding my toms tomorrow & will check to see if there are any more ripe ones. I haven't been able to get out & check on them for about 4 days. I did give a couple of bags some water but one bag didn't need any as it's still plenty wet enough. The 3 growbags tend to hold onto the water pretty well, in fact the one furthest from the door, which is also in the shadiest corner of the balcony, seems to remain much damper than the other two. The 2 surviving plants in it have resisted slightly better the "wilting" but are not free from it.

It was also in this bag I discovered a few white "mushrooms" or "toadstools" or whatever the correct name may be for the fruiting bodies of some kind of fungus in the bag. Probably due to the decomposing of the root systems of the 2 plants that died after "wilting". The other two bags seem to be fine. I've not seen anything like that in them. In fact during the 20 years I've grown tomatoes on this I never seen this happen!

 

Its quite common to get fungi in compost made with green waste, wood fibre and can be seen as indication of a fungal environment, all good. I recommend that you do not eat them but they may do no harm.

 

Hello all,

Just a short post today to mention that I just cooked a Chili-con-carne and included some of my recently dehydrated chilis and tomatoes. This was in addition to my fresh vegetables. I was just checking to see if the tomatoes and chilis would hydrate as expected and if they would be detectable in the final meal as dried.

I need not have been worried as the food was good and the dried (dehydated) tomatoes and chilies dissolved into the food as I had hoped. A success, so full steam ahead filling the airtight jars ready for winter.

Ademission

 

@infradig Thanks for that. Today when I was giving them some feed I noticed another one in a different bag. As this is something I've never experienced before I wasn't sure if they were a good thing or not. As for eating them that had never crossed my mind!

 

In my opinion the fungi in the compost is a mixture of content AND water, or poor drainage. Content never used to be problematic when composts were relatively simple in formulation. Even today drainage material COULD be similar. OK we never, in the past, used perlite. Sand and gravel was fairly uniform. (I used, when living in the SW, use Cornish Grit, which I can't get up in the Midlands) The Organic material was almost always PEAT, and the 'soil' element was good Loam, made from sterilised turf. Some mixtures were questionable but no doubt produced with economy/profit in mind. Again, IMO, since we've decided to move away from PEAT (which I fully endorse) the Organic element in growing compost is amazingly variable. Possibly the incorporation of Green material produced by a myriad of agencies has produced vastly different products. Similarly the incorporation of rotted wood is so variable.
When I consider my own garden compost, and the VERY important leafmould, I am FULLY aware of how variable my own 'product' can be! I well remember 'doing a favour' for a neighbour who was having a tree felled, and asking the tree feller for ALL the chippings (which amounted to a cubic yard!!) I built a new container and it took at least 3 years to rot it all down, sieving it every year to get the 'good' stuff. But what good growing medium I had during that time!!! These days we chip everything and at least we know 'what's gone into it'. However we only use it to Bulk-up bought potting compost. Do I need to buy a steriliser to be able to sow seeds? I'm not prepared to use the microwave to sterilise compost!!
I consider grit is grit with perhaps sand-content a variable, but very important when considering drainage!!

 

Today's harvest. Excited to try the first Orange Jazz!

 

@Garrett Your toms look very nice indeed! Other than 'Black Cherry' I've never grown any of the others.

 

Occasional poster here, but my update on Toms (North West, greenhouse, in compost, fibre pots).

This year I grew:

Gardeners Delight 2005 (Kindly supplied by GWK)
Matina
Druzba
Thessaloniki
Steak Sandwich

The good (so far)

GD2005 Taste. Amazing; it's not just about sweetness like Sungold (I find oversweet, split easily, lots of tiny fruit) with these you get a depth of flavour, bigger size (2cm). Sweet enough for a cherry but the background taste makes your taste buds explode! Hard to explain, you can't buy anything like it that I'm aware. Many thanks JWK, I've saved some seed like you described.

Some Matina coming good now. These were my "Salad Tomato" workhorse last year, taste and reliable.

The bad:

I had other projects on the go this year so made a few forced errors:

Inferior (coir) compost on some, like watering wire wool. The Lidl compost ones do better.
Slower to move from shelves to floor. Didn't set up irrigation system so not daily watering.
Plants more crowded.

Subsequently yields are down, but I've learnt my lesson and will endeavour to improve my Tomato
game next year.

Will catch up on the thread this weekend hopefully, hope you're all having more success!

 

Yes I'm thinking about which Tom's to grow next season (caught the Tom disease, perhaps?) but notice that lots of my plants (remember 80% of my plants are OUTSIDE and as I write are having another growing go!! One beefy is approaching the outside eaves of the greenhouse and showing sunflower-like truss of flowers!! Yes it's getting the gardeners watering/feeding care AND rain off the greenhouse roof (no guttering there) Thankfully no signs of blight anywhere and, like last year, Ddraig Goch and Crimson Crush romping away. Roma (seeds donated by Gardeners World) is generally productive everywhere, and most planted in those planters designed for grow bags with good reservoirs around the actual planting hole. Thus the gardener has supplies of raw eating Tom's and those for cooking with (spaghetti today whilst watching the Dutch Grand Prix)
So, although feeling a personal poor growing ability when compared to most of you,, we havnt done that badly supplying ourselves we wouldn't be in the same league as you almost commercial lot!!!

 

I think mine are over for this year, I don't really think it's worth the while keeping them much longer. The 'wilt' that's affecting them is not going away & the new sideshoots are struggling - some of these are now wilting as well.

I know I said that while they were still growing I'd continue to water & feed them but it just seems so pointless now. Better to cut my losses & think about whether or not to grow them again next year.

I could possibly grow them in pots with normal potting compost rather than in growbags. There is little room on the balcony for big pots & growbags take up less room than big pots.I'm almost convinced the fungus was present in the growbags & that the compost had not been correctly sterilized - perhaps cutting corners to offer them at a lower price than their competitors! I could also go back to getting a more well known brand than a cheapo one from the garden centre! Perhaps that was my mistake - but whatever I decide to do in May next year I certainty WON'T be buying the same brand I used this year!
.

 

Glynne i am also thinking about toms to grow next year now only having a small greenhouse
One definite for next year is honeymoon. this is my first year growing it and it has been a great success, Toms all over 300 grams each with a good taste and great shape, odd ones surpassing 400 grams but these were large oblong shaped possibly fused blooms but i never noticed any flowers of that nature. I will then grow my usual, Steak sandwich, Juane Flamme, Tigrella, and JWK's gardeners delight and i will also include Honeycombe which is another new one to me this year.

 

Sungolds are glutting


Jenny namaste