Tomato Growing Thread 2023

Thats such a shame…you’d think being Welsh they’d be hardier to blight. After all, we are the epicentre of blight, here in Wales. Fingers crossed for your CC - mine have always performed well. But this summer is exceptionally wet and ideal blight conditions

 

Once an ironmonger, always an ironmonger !! Remember being told during training that I might be the last one in England....., getting there(?)

 

@JWK I use something similar


You can lock the reel at any level and as you say, wind the plant around it. I don't have them on my toms right now because I put them in the garden and haven't built any overhead "rail" to support them. Still thinking on that one.

 

I suppose the ones I have (which have been in the shed for years) will work on the same principle as yours JWK and @CanadianLori. I think I will try it out as it seems a shame not to give it a go when I have already got the yoyo's. Time will tell and if it doesn't work I can always fall back on my canes.
(this new adventure I have taken up is certainly different from patchwork quilting

 

Like others I have a horizontal wire to which I tie some brown string (a year or two ago it was green string) from £land. Don't know what it's made from but is soft & doesn't hurt the tomato stems. I wind the stems around the string as they grow. I've done this way for many years now. I suits me on the balcony &, except for one year when we had some rather violent storms, I've never had problems with this method.

When I first started I used canes & grew them in pots but like others have found the plants get too big & heavy for canes & the pots never really hold the canes up very well anyway. Now I grow them in growbags &, except for wilt from them last year, have never had problems. I've used growbags for 15 years or more on the balcony!

I notice from photos from previous years that I had been harvesting toms as well at this time of year but, due to the cold weather in May & then again in July, they are well behind other years. Though they grew very well during the period of hot weather we had in June this year the cold July has caused them to slow down again. It seems we may have a warmer 2nd half of August this year & I hope that will be enough to ripen the tomatoes that are already a nice size (but they are 'Gardeners Delight' so will never get very big!) as well as help the smaller ones to get to their usual size.

 

Tomatoes 'Gardeners Delight' in growbags on balcony 10th August 2023
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As a chemo nurse, I find the single use tourniquets make very useful plant ties!

 

Mr Weasels brings home his single use factory earplugs for me. I rip off the plugs and use the soft pvc cords for supporting trusses.

 

I've had to remove five plants from the greenhouse, they were getting destroyed by mold. The others still look healthy enough. I've definitely grown too many plants, really running out of things to do with the produce now. Next year I'll grow half as many and try my hand again at melons, aubergine and some cucumbers.

Also, what ate this? I'm thinking a squirrel? There was another one half eaten too. It was a beefsteak, a large one too

 

Hemp comes from Cannabis sativa stems, Jute from the bark of Corchorus capsularis a member of the mallow. I seem to remember jute was grown in India and then shipped to Dundee for processing into jute sacks etc.

 

@eatenbyweasels thankyou for this, will keep eyes open for seed.