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Tomatoes

How's everyone's Toms doing?  I have to say I'm disappointed with my crop this year  - despite it being a warm spring and summer with a lot of sunshine (specially in July) mine have been slow to start fruiting - not over bountiful either -  and haven't looked anywhere near as robust as 2013's crop. 

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Posts

  • FleurisaFleurisa Posts: 779

    Same here, much less tomatoes than last year

  • TomskTomsk Posts: 204

    This is the first year I've grown tomatoes, and I transplanted them into the soil far too late, but I'm also a bit disappointed at their progress. I have a fair few fruits lower down and lots of yellow flowers from the middle upward (or did until last week's heavy hail storm knocked a lot of them off) but they seem to be growing more slowly than I expected, with none close to ripening yet, despite the good weather.

    There must be something funny with my garden because even my daffs and tulips only flowered in May, despite being planted last September and October.

    I'm looking forward to tasting my tomatoes though, and seeing if soup tastes better than using supermarket tomatoes.

  • Tomsk - you're growing them outside? Lucky you!! Mine are in a greenhouse, so I don't know what excuse they've got for their tardy progress!

     

  • FleurisaFleurisa Posts: 779

    Tomsk, when your daffs and tulips flowered is dependant on variety and not planting time. May is a pretty typical flowering time for them

  • Bf206Bf206 Posts: 234

    Like Tomsk, mine have suffered from a particularly nasty hail storm. It's affected the more exposed fruit (obviously), higher up the plants, but I think they'll still be ok for cooking. Less aethethically pleasing for snacking.

    I'm slightly kicking myself for only sowing seeds in April. Last year I started them in Feb but had to keep the plants inside until late May due to the v cold spring - hence they were very light-starved by that point. That made me hold-off this year but, comparing the two years, I think actually last year's yellow, feeble looking plants recovered incredibly quickly once the weather got warmer and they were getting plenty of sun. Plus I think last year's harvest was better overall, although the bulk of mine this year are still to ripen.

    So, in short, next year I'm going for a February sowing. If spring is cold, I know that delaying putting them outside makes them look unhealthy but they recover and, if it's a warm spring like this year, by mid-August they should be nearer the end rather than the beginning of their harvest time.

    That's what I've learnt this year anyway!

  • ItalophileItalophile Posts: 1,731

    Bf, I think you're right to sow earlier rather than later. There are myriad ways to keep seedlings happy till they're ready to plant out. If you have a sunny spot anywhere outside you can line the wee pots up in any sort of low-sided crate, wrap it in bubble wrap, and leave them out during the day. It works for me even when temps are down to single figures. The bubble wrap brings the temp up to a reasonable level but it's the bright natural light that does the trick.

  • FairygirlFairygirl Posts: 55,117

    My toms are huge but only ripening slowly as the hot weather was in June and July and it suddenly turned very cold in August just when we could have done with higher temps. It's been well below ten degrees at night for the last week and often not much better through the day, but the temps in the plastic growhouses get quite high in the daytime, so it's hard to keep a good balance between day and night.

    It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....



    I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
  • Agree with Fairygirl. August so far has been colder and less sunny than would be ideal, just when the tomatoes (and chillies, courgettes etc) would have really benefited from it.

    Probably explains lower yields, smaller tomatoes, slower and delayed ripening.

  • My tomatoes are appaling this year. Barely any fruit and what's there is slow to grow and so far I have precisely 1, yes 1, tomato that actually has any colour other than green. To be honest I'm not going to bother with tomatoes anymore, unless I can grow them under cover, in a controlled environment. The weather in the UK is just too unreliable to grow tomatoes successfully outdoors. Or maybe its just the weather conditions in my garden, which on any given day I swear are completely different to any one elses. This morning for example it was cold enough outside to see your breath. In August?!

  • Lily PillyLily Pilly Posts: 3,845

    Thank goodness it's not  just me! Was too embarrassed to comment before. I have 6 different varieties and so far we have eaten.........1 image

    Weeds are flowers, too, once you get to know them.”
    A A Milne
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