Tomato growing diary 2016

[Penellype]

First Shirley's picked today from my friend's greenhouse - a couple are ripe and some just turning red. The slugs and snails are having a feast so I am salvaging what I can and will make some sauce later.

[Deano's "Diggin It"]

Still no ripe tomatoes for me. Anyone wiyh me?

Scoot! I'm with ya!

When do people nip out the growing tip, date wise!

I let mine (If undercover) put out 6 fruit trusses, then nip out the tip!

But again not the worlds best year for Toms for me!





But Here's Hopeing!

[craftymarie]

I've not grown bush tomatoes before only the cordon type so didn't know what to expect. Lucky I did as my Gardener's Delight and Shirley are still very green and quite a way off ripening.

Picked some Tomato Terenzo today along with a lone tumbling yellow and they are really delicious. I don't know if it's because they're the first of the season and I have got rose tinted glasses on but I swear they taste better than the Gardener's Delight I grew last year. So sweet. Been cutting in half and dipping in salt. Yum. Also they do taste so much better kept at room temp rather than the fridge - makes a huge diff to the taste of tomatoes.



Only had the pic with what else I picked this morning. I will grow these Terenzo ones again.

[WPG]

I'm getting deja vu from last year....18 plants, great foliage, plenty of flowers, but nowhere near a ripe tomato yet.

Potatoes have already been chopped down with blight, so it's not looking hopeful

[Jungle Jane]

Blight visited two of my tomato plants a few weeks ago,my plants are spread out everywhere in my garden outside,they're all vulnerable. I noticed yesterday on a couple of plants,a few of my tomatoes had blossom end rot where the blossom was squidgy & wet from the rain & still attached to the tomato,depending on the size of the tomato,smaller underdeveloped ones weren't affected so I've taken off bits of blossom that are still attached to the tomatoes & they should be ok now but I'l have to remember to do it with future growth.

[Penellype]

Blossom end rot is caused by lack of water causing calcium deficiency in the fruits - it is nothing to do with the old flowers sticking to the tomatoes.

https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?PID=395

[Jungle Jane]

Blossom end rot is caused by lack of water causing calcium deficiency in the fruits - it is nothing to do with the old flowers sticking to the tomatoes.

https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?PID=395

I was hoping it wasn't that,I'll stop blaming the flowers It hasn't rained here properly for weeks,my lack of watering is probably to blame.

[Scoot]

Just noticed one of my sungold tomatoes is starting to turn from green to a funny orange.

First one of the year!

[bramble]

Sometimes I wonder about blossom end rot. Every tomato plant in my greenhouse gets watered and fed at the same time and yet one or two plants will fall victim to this. Surely there must be more. I notice its usually one of the plum types.

[Scarlet]

^^^^yep! I agree, plum type toms need lots more watering than other types.

[OscarSidcup]

Blight, like the great ripper, has made an appearance and is giving the kiss of death to my tomato plants one by one. Most of my noire de crimee, yellow stuffer, san marzano and cornabel are on the way out. Only the F1 crimson crush seem immune for now.
So i have managed to harvest a couple of tomatoes and took this photo i will cherish for months to come...


This year will be all about learning (first year grower). I discovered blight (never even knew that it existed), spacing of plants, protection etc.

But the rest of the produce is doing super well. Just the tomatoes have been singled out

[vixylix]

Every year is a learning curve Oscar! Sorry to hear about your toms, there's been alot of it around this year

[SaraJH]

I scoffed a Sungold today, wow it tasted good. Just got to wait for everything else to ripen...

Stoopid question alert, if tomatoes ripen down the truss how to supermarket suppliers manage to sell us big long trusses of vine tomatoes?

[Penellype]

I scoffed a Sungold today, wow it tasted good. Just got to wait for everything else to ripen...

Stoopid question alert, if tomatoes ripen down the truss how to supermarket suppliers manage to sell us big long trusses of vine tomatoes?

The supermarket varieties are bred specifically to ripen on the truss all at the same time. Gardeners generally want a succession of fruit over a longer period so most of the garden varieties will ripen one at a time.

[Penellype]

I've heard it said that bush tomatoes produce all their fruit at once and then stop. This is not my experience for the balconi varieties. The February sown plants in the photos produced a crop of decent tomatoes on the windowsill from late May to mid June, after which they started to produce new flowers. At this point I potted them up and put them outside. One of the red plants is outside the back door in a balconniere planter, with limited sunshine, and now looks like this:



One of the yellow ones has been on a self watering tray in the growhouse (doors open and top off) and now looks like this:



The old foliage looks dreadful, but there is plenty more fruit to come