Tumbling toms

[SlugLobber]

Mine are all at flowering stage, too and are quite short. The cold spring plus greenhouse blowing away kind of slowed my progress, somewhat!!

[Rhona]

Mine are flowering (just) - actually only some are. Some are still tiddlers! They've been under cloches but are out in the big bad world now, bless 'em! They'll be fine, I'm sure.

[Complete novice at this!]

Hundreds and Thousands

i've got 2 baskets of "hundreds and thousands" which have hundreds of flowers and only a couple of fruit each.... is anyone else growing this variety outside? Being in Cornwall it's been very windy and wet the last couple of days and the forecast isn't too great so i'm hoping they'll be ok but not expecting any red fruit until at least the end of July.

[gojiberry]

Mine are such a mass of growth that I have started to remove some of the leaves on the inside, and also started to nip out some of the growthtip to try and divert more energy into the tomatoes that have already formed. Probably about 30/40 tomatoes in each basket so far and still plenty of flowers on each.

Ian

[Two_Sheds]

My toms were sown in February, gradually potted on into slightly bigger pots each time, and have just now, 5 months later ~ got a marble-sized green tomato forming.

they takes a while

[Alison]

Mine were planted in April (as normal for me) and I have loads of flowers and the earlier ones are now starting to form very little green fruit. For some reason one plant is ahead of the others but I'm a long way of the glutting season!

[rayj]

I think the past couple of years have been unusual for tomatoes in general. I visited a market garden in the heart of Gloucestershire last year and they had no tomatoes ready sale in July. The old chap told me they had Greenhouses full of fruit that just wouldn't ripen.
I have two lots of three Tumblers in baskets (but not hanging) and they are a mass of foliage and flower and gradually the fruit are forming.
Think I'll do the same as I have done with my Cordon Tomatoes and remove a lot of the leaves, as somone else on this thread has suggested as the baskets are just a mass of foliage.

[Alison]

You don't need to remove the leaves on hanging basket type toms, the additional leaves help the plant photosynthesis more effectively. Although actually you don't need to remove leaves from cordon plants either, just the shoots which form in the armpits! Sometimes remove a few near the end of the season but at this time of the year, they all stay if they're looking healthy.

[rayj]

Well as the Baskets were overcrowed I did as threatened an removed a mass of leaves from mostly the bottom of the Tumblers and found a load of hidden fully formed fruit, which will now see the light of day and hopefully ripen.
I will report in a few weeks as to what the outcome has been?

[Demeter]

Dunno if it was the right thing to do, but I stripped out some of the foliage from my tumbling toms as it was just a dense mass of leaves, stems and flowers. Not much light getting to the middle, and more importantly no air, so I decided to open them up a bit, to let them breathe... Was worried they would get mildew or something otherwise. Anyway, one of the plants I attacked has now started to set fruit, and the others have started growing in a more open way (better, I think) although they don't yet have any fruit set. The one plant I didn't attack was already growing in a nice open way and has loads of fruit set so if the others follow that examples we'll be fine

[sharonr]

i've got 2 baskets of "hundreds and thousands" which have hundreds of flowers and only a couple of fruit each.... is anyone else growing this variety outside? Being in Cornwall it's been very windy and wet the last couple of days and the forecast isn't too great so i'm hoping they'll be ok but not expecting any red fruit until at least the end of July.

My sisters is the same her`s is outside and it`s at about the same stage and we`re in the Midlands. I was crafty and put mine on my dinning room window sill, which faces south and it has tons of tomato`s on it. I`ve had 5 red toms sofar and my son says they taste great. My dads is in his pollytunnel, has loads of fruit, but all are green. So hang in there it will be worth the wait.

[fastlearner]

I've got gardners delight and sweet millions (I think that's what they were called!). The gardners delight have a good few trusses of toms but still very green - the "sweet millions" have loads of flowers but no fruit as yet.....

[hawthorns]

i have garten perle growing in hanging baskets and they are now turning orange. i also have red alert in half baskets on the fence they are still green fruit. i have had a lot of discolour in the leaves of the garten perle which ive picked off

[sarahspatch]

I've had the same problem with my Garden perle Hawthorns, or whatever they're called!
Leaves are very yellow so have just given them a seaweed feed and will hope for the best! No fruit as yet either.

[sdgtiger]

Many thanks for all the reassurance. A few weeks on and ive got masses of small greem toms forming. The plants themselves are huge with very dense foliage which i can barely part but just gonna leave them to do their thing and watch em ripen.... can't wait!!