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Tomato varieties for outdoors
Crazy Tomato Lady
Posts: 67
in Fruit & veg
What Tomato Varieties do you normally grow outdoors? I had success with Principe Borghese last year, but I know last year was a very good weather year...
I have the following free seeds from mags so would be interested to know if you've grown them outdoors (or any other varieties);
Moneymaker
Gardeners delight
Ildi
Red Pear
(the cold GH is already allocated to Soldacki, Cuore Di Bue, Sungold, Suncherry premium and Anna Russian & peppers - all from suggestions on here)
I might try and make some sort of blight (rain) shelter for the outdoor toms
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I'm trying
Latah Very Early Red Tomato & Urbikany Tall Bush Tomato.You can read about them here. Supposed to be very good in colds climates.
http://www.realseeds.co.uk/tomatoes_bush.html
I've grown the first two (moneymaker and gardener's delight) outside successfully, Mandy. They do need to be kept in the cold GH for a while though of course. Good plan to give them a bit of shelter when they go out.
We grew Gardener's Delight outside last year. I planted the seeds late on - they were out of date, so I just thought I would plant and see what happened, and got about 10 plants. I grew them on in pots. Not easy when we went on holiday for 9 days in August - put them in the shade behind the shed and put upside down bottles into the compost in the pots filled with water. They made it. They fruited rather late, but were pretty prolific - far more than we needed. But we did have a warm year here. Not sure what would have happened in the previous two summers.
Mandy, don't bother with a blight (rain) shelter. Fungal spores travel on the breeze and there's no way of intercepting them. The only way to keep a plant dry outdoors is to enclose it and, in doing so, you reduce air circulation, one of the few natural helping hands against fungal disease.
I usually grow Gardeners Delight in the gh but last year I had a bumper crop from seeds that grew out of a mulch from my compost heap. I transplanted them into a different bed and they cropped far better than those inside. While I don't eat them myself my family eat them like sweets.
Sounds like Gardeners delight and money maker are the way to go for this year then (must stop self from buying more seeds!), I'm aiming for a glut of tomatoes, I miss them the supermarket ones just aren't the same.
Thanks for the tip about the rain shelter Italophile, I'll try location and pruning to delay blight instead.
Andrew I've heard good things about Latah, might grow it next year
Mandy, if they're outside, give them as much space between plants as you can, try to keep a gap of around 18" between the lowest foliage and the soil, and nip out excess foliage that looks like clumping together and hindering air circulation. Keep the foliage as dry as you can and nip off and destroy any leaves as soon as they show any tell-tale signs of wee spots with dark rings around them.
The common fungal diseases in the domestic tomato garden - eg, Early Blight and SLS - are a hindrance much more than a death sentence. With a helping hand, the plants cope and live their usual lives.
We had gardeners delight and money maker last year in big pots. We didn't have to buy tomatoes all through summer there were so many. They weren't the best tasting things in the world but a constant crop. This year I'm trying sungold, the seeds should arrive today.
For the last two or three years I've grown Red Alert (bush tomato, for pots) outside - I've found them very healthy, very productive, and very delicious. Excellent germination rate, too - I only needed four bushes and had thirty healthy plants!