Tomato first timer - what did I do wrong!

[Late tomato]

I grew gardeners delight tomatoes from seed for the first time this year, planting out in my polytunnel successfuly in grow bags, pots and troughs, with a few pots on the patio too. I planted out around April time, and have followed watering and feeding advice, pruning off side shoots where possible. Only problem is, crop is late! I'm in Perthshire and temperature has already started dropping. I have some halfgrown fruit trusses but the remaining plants are still at flowering stage.
What did I do wrong - or is it perhaps the lack of sun up here this summer? Can I do anything to bring the trusses on before first frost? Not sure when that's likely to be - we only moved up here in February. Be most grateful for some advice!

[rosiepumpkin]

Sounds like you didn't do anything wrong, it's being that far north and the crazy summer. Take a lot of the leaves off, take off the trusses with flowers and the remaining trusses will ripen quicker. It's not been a good year for tomatoes. You may also like to look at some of the varieties suited to colder climates. Latah is good, there is also Glacier, Sub Arctic Plenty (which does have bad reports here but you can try it) and I'm sure folkd will be here soon to suggest the varities Ive forgotten.

[Jungle Jane]

Could pollinating insects get into your polytunnel? If you have plants in the flowering stage only,it's like they haven't ever been pollinated....

[meteor]

From what I can see you did nothing wrong, all my tomatoes were a little late this year and I'm a lot further south, it was just a mad, bad crazy season for tomatoes this year. It was an unfortunate year to start off, maybe a quick look through the seed catalogues and heritage seed websites to find varieties more suited to a more northerly area for next year.

[vixylix]

I think its just been this year - mine took forever too. I took all the flowers off, just leaving the ones which have formed fruits and cut back alot of the leaves - it seems to be doing the trick, they're slowly moving further along. Charles Dowding recommends reducing watering to stress them out - I was worried they'd get blossom end rot then though so I havent really done it

Worst comes to worst make green tomato chutney!

[bario1]

I would only grow cherry type tomatoes if I was you, I can't get anything larger to ripen this far North. My Black Cherry are still all green, Sungold and Tumbler have only been ripening for the last few weeks, though I'm getting a fair few now. This year they are exceptionally late by all accounts though, so it's probably not your fault.

[Thelma Sanders]

This may sound counterintuitive, but maybe planting your toms out into a (I presume) cold greenhouse in April, may have set them back a bit. I'm a lot further South and mine didn't go into the greenhouse until the 2nd week in May, because nights were still frosty.
Sometimes if they get badly chilled it can take them a few weeks to get going again.

But it's been a bad year for toms, as the others have said

[Nicos]

I'd go with the cold nights holding them back too.

Sounds like it's a combination of 'things'

( at least you didn't get blight ! )

[maverick451]

This may sound counterintuitive, but maybe planting your toms out into a (I presume) cold greenhouse in April, may have set them back a bit. I'm a lot further South and mine didn't go into the greenhouse until the 2nd week in May, because nights were still frosty.
Sometimes if they get badly chilled it can take them a few weeks to get going again.

But it's been a bad year for toms, as the others have said

I agree with that

My Latah bush tomatoes I planted out in July have overtaken the ones I planted in in May.

Id recommend one called outdoor girl, very cold tolerant and extremely early.

[Bill HH]

Even in the far south (Devon) I have had terrible problems, just a very few ripening now. Sungold have been the best the rest are just green. We had cold nights right through spring and into summer. Its been a bad year so its not your fault.

[Penellype]

Agree with the above - its been a dreadful year for outdoor toms. Watching Gardener's World last night (bearing in mind Long Meadow is in the south), Monty Don was showing his outdoor tomatoes - plenty of fruit but nothing turning red. He was even asking for advice on growing bush tomatoes!

[kris1960]

Very odd year- I have a bumper crop of 6 varieties of green tomatos. As soon as mine show any sign of ripening I have been bringing them home to ripen in bowls. I have finished ripening about 8 lbs so far and have a further 10 lbs in bowls but that has only touched the surface of the problem- I think I am going to also have to start doing something with green ones, I'm not sure what happens if they are left not ripening in the cold. Some are starting to go pale.

[Penellype]

They should continue to ripen as long as the plant is not attacked by disease, which will inevitably spread to the fruit. The main concern is from fungi (botrytis and blight mainly). Tomatoes are remarkable things. Early this year my indoor Shirley plants were badly infested with red spider mites and almost all of the foliage died. Each plant had a couple of trusses of fruit which were all still green. Rather than ditch the lot (aware already that this year was slow for things like tomatoes) I decided to strip off the dead leaves and leave the fruit where it was. Every single fruit bigger than a marble slowly ripened and I have now eaten all of them. The flavour wasn't brilliant, but they were perfectly acceptable to eat even though the plants had completely stopped growing.

[Jay22]

Problems here too. As has been said I think it's down to the rotten summer. I grow mainly cherry toms and have only 2 fruits turn red, the rest are green and there are not an awful lot of them either. Compare that to last year where we had loads on each plant. Our consolation, if there is one, is that almost everyone, north and south, are in the same boat.

[alldigging]

Its been a terrible year for my tomatoes.
The crimson crush were first to ripen and get eaten...
Just started getting sungolds in the last week but not very many ripe..