Hi there! I am new here and from Germany.

[Iris_Germany]

Hello, dear gardeners,

My English is not perfect but I would like to look around here a little bit. I hope I can convers with you about our common garden hobby and share delights as well as chagrins.

We had a nasty, rainy summer in Germany, and I hear that it was exactly the same in England.

The blight destroyed most of my greenhouse tomatoes. The only varieties who survived were "Sunviva", a yellow cocktail tomato and "Primabella", a red cocktail tomato. They are both especially bred for phytophtora resistance. I had them in open field, without any shelter. Hundreds of wonderful tomatoes I got out of them, which consoled me for my tragic greenhouse loss.

The disease got in my greenhouse via an open window. If I close the window, no bees and bumblebees can't come in and it is getting too hot too. So the blight came over night and destroyed really nearly everything I had in there. More than 20 tomato plants with already hundreds of unripe tomatoes. 2 of them got over the blight: Blondköpfchen (an old heirloom tomato, yellow, small, fruity) and a pineapple tomato. The latter survived too and I harvested three single tomatoes of this one. They were big and tasted wonderfully. But only 3? What a desaster ...

Hopefully, next year will be merciful to my poor tomato plants.

Best regards from Germany,

Iris

[Nicos]

Hi there, and welcome to the Vine from sunny Normandy in France!
Lovely to meet you and welcome you aboard!

Sorry to hear your news about the greenhouse tomatoes
I didn’t grow tomatoes this year but last year had a massive crop from my outdoor pineapple tomatoes!

[nick the grief]

Hello, dear gardeners,

My English is not perfect but I would like to look around here a little bit. I hope I can convers with you about our common garden hobby and share delights as well as chagrins.

Welcome to the vine Iris ... and don't worry, your English is better than my German

This year was a difficult year in more than one sense of the word. but like all gardeners we are optimistic that next year will be better (lets hope so!)

Sadly a lot of the more flavoursome varieties are not open pollenated or blight resistant so its a price we have to pay unless you resort to a barage of chemicals

[Iris_Germany]

Hi Nicos,

An english garden forum moderator with a spanish name and located in the north of France!
If this is not the european spirit, I do not know what!

So, you had your pineapple tomatoes outdoor and hundreds of them, it seems?
Shame. It's not fair!!!

(Thanks for this very lovely welcome. I appreciate it very much.)

[Iris_Germany]

Sadly a lot of the more flavoursome varieties are not open pollenated or blight resistant so its a price we have to pay unless you resort to a barage of chemicals

Hi Nick,

I am sorry, I do not know what open pollinated is ...
Do you mean that it is no F1 hybride?
There we have already the language problems ... Sorry ...

And thanks for your kind welcome

[Bren In Pots]

Hello and welcome to the vine Iris

Sorry to read you lost your greenhouse toms I had the opposite, I stopped growing tomatoes outdoors they either had blight or just didn't ripen in time before the frost came

I only grow 3 varieties now
San Marzano to make passata
Gardeners Delight they were the first tomatoes I ever grew so it seem a tradition to keep growing them.
Black Cherry they're my favourite and I rarely leave the Greenhouse without eating one or two.

[Purple Primrose]

Hi, Iris, and welcome from me in northern Scotland.

You are correct in thinking that open pollinated means pollinated naturally (by wind, by insects or self-pollinated) rather than a F1 hybrid.

[Iris_Germany]

Hello and welcome to the vine Iris

Sorry to read you lost your greenhouse toms I had the opposite, I stopped growing tomatoes outdoors they either had blight or just didn't ripen in time before the frost came

They didn't ripen before frost came? What climate is this where you are? Seems to be very cold!


San Marzano to make passata
Gardeners Delight they were the first tomatoes I ever grew so it seem a tradition to keep growing them.
Black Cherry they're my favourite and I rarely leave the Greenhouse without eating one or two.

Hi Bren in Pots,
Thank you for your kind welcome!

Of your 3 tomato varieties I only know the San Marzano. Black Cherry and Gardener Delight I do not know. You have some different sorts over there from our's here, but some are also the same. Next year I want to try my first black tomato too. Indigo Rose. I hope they taste good. If they survive ...

A few weeks ago I sent an english aquaintance some seeds of our open source-tomato "Sunviva", which is fairly new in Germany. The Sunviva comes from a German professor (no, I don't want to brag with his achievements ) who bred with a bunch of students this type of tomato. The goal was to breed a blight resistant tomato who is available for everyone and not under the restriction of the big seed firms. I tried it this year and have been very happy with the results. I should collect more of the seed next year and give it to some more people.

Crimson Crush seems to be the most blight resistant tomato in the UK, I have read. Do you know it? But it is an F1 hybrid too. (I have nothing against hybrids but I like the idea that a good blight resistant tomato is available for everyone.)

If someone is interested in that topic ...
https://www.science.org/content/arti...ce-plant-seeds

[Iris_Germany]

Hi, Iris, and welcome from me in northern Scotland.

You are correct in thinking that open pollinated means pollinated naturally (by wind, by insects or self-pollinated) rather than a F1 hybrid.

Hi to Scotland!

I have read all the Hamish MacBeth series. When I hear Scotland, I always think of Hamish.

Thank you for your welcome and your information.

[Bren In Pots]

Iris I've been given some 'Indigo Cherry Drops' to grow next year I think they're similar to Indigo Rose so we'll both be trying something new.

[Iris_Germany]

Iris I've been given some 'Indigo Cherry Drops' to grow next year I think they're similar to Indigo Rose so we'll both be trying something new.

Yes, sound good too!

[Snoop Puss]

Hello and welcome, Iris.

I'm a Brit but I've been living and working in north-east Spain for the last 30 years. We have extreme weather in the area where I live, not like the 'costas' at all. I grow all my tomatoes outdoors. I'm very fortunate that tomato blight is a very rare thing here, but red spider mite is a terrible pest. I grow several different varieties. My big discovery this year is a Swiss variety, Rose de Berne. I'll be growing it every year from now. Not an F1, but seeds are very expensive so I'm going to try and learn how to save seeds next year.

Fingers crossed we all have a good growing year in 2022.

[rary]

Hello Iris and welcome, I come from the west of Scotland and though I don't usually grow tomatoes outdoors, when I do, I have found Mointain Magic which is a F1 variety to have good resistance to blight, if you prefer open pollinated varieties go for early cropping types
my English isn't that good either but I prefer it being an open forum not an English forum

[Iris_Germany]

Hi and thanks for your kind welcome. I envy you that you have no blight at all there where you live in Spain. If we had more blight resistant tomatoes here we could grow them ourselves on our fields too in a big style. All the imported tomatoes are red and beautiful but taste of nothing. And instead of vegetables we grow corn for energy generation. If nothing would be imported, we would starve here in Germany. Nothing is more satisfying to me to pass high nosed by the EU tomatoes in the supermarket, to go home and to relish my wonderful home grown ones.

Fingers crossed we all have a good growing year in 2022. [/QUOTE]
("Red spider mite?" This sounds awful. I shudder already when hearing the name.)

I heard from Berner Rose btw. and it must be very tasty indeed. Hearing all this fine tomatoes, I want to have them all too! But of course, this is not possible: Lack of space in my greenhouse.

[Iris_Germany]

Hello Iris and welcome, I come from the west of Scotland and though I don't usually grow tomatoes outdoors, when I do, I have found Mointain Magic which is a F1 variety to have good resistance to blight, if you prefer open pollinated varieties go for early cropping types
my English isn't that good either but I prefer it being an open forum not an English forum

Hi, thank you for welcome! Your English is not that good either? What does this mean? You speak only Gallic over there?
I know the Mountain Magic, I have got seeds as a present this year. I heard only good of them and will try them next year too.
You have a short winter where you live or are you in a more moderate region of Scotland? Hamish MacBeth could not grow tomatoes in his Highland mountains, I would reckon.