Tomato reviews likes & dislikes 2015 - 2020

[Issy]

Still picking Shirley from the tunnel - lovely tomatoes!

[Scarlet]

Yes! Really like its more complex flavour. Not a fan of super sweet cherries like Sungold.

Actually I noticed earlier that you like similar toms to me - I’m not a lover of Sungold either.
Black Russian is lovely and black icicle is a firm favourite of mine.

[Scarlet]

Still picking Shirley from the tunnel - lovely tomatoes!

Really? Everything has been frosted in my garden. We’ve had several hard frosts over the last 10 days or so.

[veggiechicken]

Black Icicle and Gardener's Delight are the only toms left in the GH - and I grow these every year.




I hang the unripened trusses over a wire in the GH to finish off - they're not still attached.

[toomanytommytoes]

Actually I noticed earlier that you like similar toms to me - I’m not a lover of Sungold either.
Black Russian is lovely and black icicle is a firm favourite of mine.

Next year will be the first time we'll have grown a larger black tomato. Very exciting! Tasmanian Chocolate is a cross between Paul Robeson and New Big Dwarf. Rosella Purple is supposed to be similar to Cherokee Purple but on a dwarf plant and with a shorter season.

I've added Black Russian and Black Icicle to the long list of future candidates

[Mark_Riga]

Grafted tomatoes

I've got too many green tomatoes left in the greenhouse, though they are still ripening slowly. Pictured are Alicante and gardeners delight. Further in are some marmande and a plum; these did OK but the gardeners delight and Alicante excelled this year. This picture was taken last Friday.



In the past few years, I've had various forms of wilt so I decided to try grafting my tomatoes this year. I got the cheapest rootstock seeds that Mole seed sold together with their silicon collars to hold the 2 bits together.

The attached 'spreadsheet' is a bit difficult to read but shows the variety and weight of crop produced. The process was a bit finiky but not too time consuming and there are several videos on utube. I used a heated propagator (without a thermostat) to keep them in while the cuts healed in a darkish corner of the kitchen. From about 32 grafts made, I ended up with 22 plants. Of the 6 varieties tried, gardeners delight, alicante, marmande, burpee del., romano and galina none of the galina survived though I did plant out 2 non-grafted plants. For each of the grafted plants except 1 that was a bit weedy, I let 2 cordons develop, the main stem and the first sideshoot after the first truss.so I had about 39 shoots to support. These I planted out 2ft apart so had 20 plants in a 20 ft greenhouse with 2 galina at the end.
The best plants were the alicante and the gardeners delight with the best of each making 8.6kg and 7.0kg respectively. with a total from the 20 grafted plants of just over 100kg so far.
There have been a couple of problems: both the galina collapsed on the same day when doing really well no idea why, they both recovered somewhat and I was able to harvest some off them. I had a water dripper going to each plant but not sure how good this was as I felt, in one area of the greenhouse most of the soil was bone dry (due to a large tree near by) and the watering may have made for an over watered bit close to the tomato stems. Also, during the very hot spell, a slug managed to creep into the watering line and bung it up totally. I didn't realise until I noticed most plants drooping one day after I thought I had just watered them.
Then about a week ago, I went to harvest some more galina that I had left on the plants due to lack of space in the kitchen and didn't find any. Several other tomatoes had been eaten and gnawed at. I recognised at once the work of ratus ratus. I have been able to make it more or less rat proof now and some more tomtoes are now ripening. I'll be harvesting some tomorrow.
The main feed I gave them was comfrey brew. I filled a 200l waterbutt with comfrey and topped it up with water. I also used 1 box of miracle-grow plant food over the year and an old 1l plastic bottle of tomato food that slugs had eaten most of the label off.

In conclusion, I would say that grafting for tomatoes is an option instead of growbags or digging out the greenhouse soil. I think, if I graft them next year, I would also dig out a square spadeful of soil where the plants are to go and fill with compost as an extra precaution against root disease.

[Scarlet]

I'm hoping to give it a go next year! That's a lot of tomatoes!,

[Mark_Riga]

It is a lot of tomatoes and I'm in a quandary as to how many plants to grow now for next year. This year could be exceptional. Also, there is quite a big sycamore tree next to one end on the greenhouse. I want to cut it down as it casts a lot of shade, dries out the ground at one end and drops a lot of litter all over the greenhouse. But it does shade it somewhat in very hot weather and I suspect it is why the tomato plants are still producing now as it offers some protection from frost.

Also with the wide spacing of the plants, I have had very little botrytis till just recently - which is exacerbated by not opening it up fully because of potential rat attack.

edit: after todays harvest, that's 105kg

[Northampton-Nick]

I grow four tomato varieties every year
gardeners delight.....average year
orange paruche (my favourite).......exellent year
moneymaker.....exeelent year
alicante......again very good year

[It never rains..it pours]

I've got too many green tomatoes left in the greenhouse, though they are still ripening slowly. Pictured are Alicante and gardeners delight. Further in are some marmande and a plum; these did OK but the gardeners delight and Alicante excelled this year. This picture was taken last Friday.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]84185[/ATTACH]

In the past few years, I've had various forms of wilt so I decided to try grafting my tomatoes this year. I got the cheapest rootstock seeds that Mole seed sold together with their silicon collars to hold the 2 bits together.

The attached 'spreadsheet' is a bit difficult to read but shows the variety and weight of crop produced. The process was a bit finiky but not too time consuming and there are several videos on utube. I used a heated propagator (without a thermostat) to keep them in while the cuts healed in a darkish corner of the kitchen. From about 32 grafts made, I ended up with 22 plants. Of the 6 varieties tried, gardeners delight, alicante, marmande, burpee del., romano and galina none of the galina survived though I did plant out 2 non-grafted plants. For each of the grafted plants except 1 that was a bit weedy, I let 2 cordons develop, the main stem and the first sideshoot after the first truss.so I had about 39 shoots to support. These I planted out 2ft apart so had 20 plants in a 20 ft greenhouse with 2 galina at the end.
The best plants were the alicante and the gardeners delight with the best of each making 8.6kg and 7.0kg respectively. with a total from the 20 grafted plants of just over 100kg so far.
There have been a couple of problems: both the galina collapsed on the same day when doing really well no idea why, they both recovered somewhat and I was able to harvest some off them. I had a water dripper going to each plant but not sure how good this was as I felt, in one area of the greenhouse most of the soil was bone dry (due to a large tree near by) and the watering may have made for an over watered bit close to the tomato stems. Also, during the very hot spell, a slug managed to creep into the watering line and bung it up totally. I didn't realise until I noticed most plants drooping one day after I thought I had just watered them.
Then about a week ago, I went to harvest some more galina that I had left on the plants due to lack of space in the kitchen and didn't find any. Several other tomatoes had been eaten and gnawed at. I recognised at once the work of ratus ratus. I have been able to make it more or less rat proof now and some more tomtoes are now ripening. I'll be harvesting some tomorrow.
The main feed I gave them was comfrey brew. I filled a 200l waterbutt with comfrey and topped it up with water. I also used 1 box of miracle-grow plant food over the year and an old 1l plastic bottle of tomato food that slugs had eaten most of the label off.

In conclusion, I would say that grafting for tomatoes is an option instead of growbags or digging out the greenhouse soil. I think, if I graft them next year, I would also dig out a square spadeful of soil where the plants are to go and fill with compost as an extra precaution against root disease.

Well done for collecting so much data. Find myself half the fun is trying 50% different varieties so they get 2 year test as brought seed lasts the 2 years. Seeing what does best with different approaches & weather but I’m not in your league of weighing output

[finglas]

Last year i grew 5 varieties in an unheated greenhouse just outside Glasgow.

The first main variety was moneymaker. Guess its a famous variety really. They did well but i found they got more blossom end rot relative to the other varieties.

The second main variety was jen's tomato from the realseed company, they did very well. They are orange and marketed as a large cherry. The size of a tangerine approximately. They did very well. No blossom end rot at all but instead a lot of them split. Not an issue really because we use them up.

I think both the splitting and the blossom end rot was just my eratic watering.

I also grew a couple of plants which were the cherry tomato variety Rosso Cremlim. These tomatoes tasted very good but i got very little fruit from them. Perahps 5 trusses from each plant and only about 6 good tomatoes on each.

With regards to bush varieties i grew tumbling tom red, another famous one im sure. Rrally left it to its own devices and it did well. Excellent tasting fruits.

Perhaps most interestingly, the last variety i grew was sweet rosso seeds i harvested from Marks and Spencers cherry tomatoes. I would imagine the tomatoes sold in marks and spencers eill he from F1 plants and so when i save the seed i am growing the F2 plant. I understand there is a lot of genetic variability and that these plants could produce similar to the F1 or not at all etc.
I did it for the fun and the experiment. I gave them all the same treatment as the other plants and the same soil and feeding etc.
At first they did extremely well and were growing at twice the speed of the other varieities. Really strong lush growth. But once they got to about 4ft tall and had some flowrrs appearing they seemed to stop almost entirely. The leaves shrivelled and the plants produced very little fruit. I think this is just a risk with F1 seed saving; the seeds wont grow true to the parent.

Anyway, hope this may be of some help or interest to some of you. Thanks,

Jamie

[It never rains..it pours]

finglas, thank you for the information, I suspect the F1 sellers may pay for your story
Since having end rot first year have added lime to potting soil and it is very rare now. Still not mastered the splitting but the conservatory ones suffered from it more than greenhouse and the only difference was a lot higher temperature and no shade in conservatory

[finglas]

Thanks it never rains....

I also add some dolomite lime to every ither water i give them but still had some bad blossom end rot. I think it was just the temps as well. Drying out quicker than i could water. Some of the tomato plants actually had the growing tip burned out them with the sun! I had to put up a lot of shading.

This year ill he growing in a polytunnel with beds and im hoping they retain moisture better than the containers!

Jamie

[Snoop Puss]

Try some calcium for dealing with blossom end rot. I add hardwood ash at the beginning of the season, for example. I should say 'usually add'. Last year I had two beds of toms, one I forgot add ash to. The toms in one bed were OK, but the toms in the bed I forgot to add ash to really suffered with BER.

[It never rains..it pours]

Thanks it never rains....

I also add some dolomite lime to every ither water i give them but still had some bad blossom end rot. I think it was just the temps as well. Drying out quicker than i could water. Some of the tomato plants actually had the growing tip burned out them with the sun! I had to put up a lot of shading.

This year ill he growing in a polytunnel with beds and im hoping they retain moisture better than the containers!

Jamie

I add a little lime in watering too along with fertilizer and gypsum when they get bigger plants from flowering onwards. One difference maybe is I use hydrated lime, as its the easiest and lowest cost lime source for me here oddly but it does work faster as very fine