I don’t know about you but I’ve had hardly any Tomatoes this year. Most of mine are still green and sitting on the bush in the rain – booh! The only success I’ve had with outdoor Tomatoes this year was with my clutch of teeny-tiny Tomatoes, my Sweet Pea Currants.
I lovingly raised them from even teenier seed and planted them out in the sunny corner, under my Peach tree. Once they were in they began to romp away, and just as Coopette said they soon became ‘vigorous and sprawling’.
So much so that I had to deploy the Pea sticks to keep the plants and what seemed like millions, (okay thousands) of fruits off the ground. Soon the little pea-sized Tomatoes were ripening. The teeny-tiny trusses had 14 maybe 16 fruits on each. The top ones ripened first, while the middle ones were orange and the smaller ones on the end were deep green moving to pale green – very pretty visually.
And the taste? Well, the name says it all, Sweet! And they certainly were. Too tiny to slice they are really more like Tomato candy – just pop them in your mouth one by one, no salad required.
I’d definitely recommend growing them. They seem to do fine as an outdoor crop here in the UK and even though I did feed them with Tomato feed (when I remembered) I’m sure that their flavour would still be very good without. You will need to plan in some support to tame the plants once they get to their mid-Summer craziness otherwise you’ll have a lot of very dirty, very small Tomatoes. And nobody wants that.
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It’s about this time of year that I start to fuss and worry about blight on my Tomatoes. I’ve never really been able to relax since The Year the Tomatoes Died. So I thought I would re-publish this little article that I wrote last year for the Guardian Gardening blog. I will be doing all of this again this year, come rain or shine :)
When I first starting vegetable gardening in 2005 growing Tomatoes was a doddle, a breeze. Just bung in the plants, water them a bit, feed them a bit and ta-da! right on que at the end of August you’d be eating your own home-grown tommies.
Not anymore. Over the last few years, our summers have been, well, disappointing. And if we’re deluged in rain again this year it means one thing; that growing outdoor Tomatoes in the UK will be more of a battle with wind and rain in an effort to avoid the dreaded…gulp… blight.
As most will know, Tomato blight is a nasty disease that starts with small brown patches on stalks and leaves but soon progresses to the fruits.
If I had a greenhouse I’d take my Tomatoes under cover. But since I don’t have that option (and frankly the thought of ‘not’ growing Tomatoes makes me feel a little nauseous) then there’s only one thing for it – to fight.
Here’s my plan.
- Grow (or buy) vigorous, healthy plants.
- Don’t plant Tomatoes in the same spot as last year.
- Plant disease-resistant varieties (Ferline, for example)
- Remove the bottom leaves up to the first truss of fruits to avoid splash back
- Remove and destroy all plant waste after the growing season
- Avoid watering on to the leaves. Water directly to the roots and don’t handle plants when the vines are wet.
- Control weeds in and around the plants. Weeds serve as hosts for insects and disease.
- Control pests (particularly aphids) which may transmit disease from plant to plant.
- Remove plants as soon as the tell-tale brown patches are seen. Wash hands and tools with a detergent after handling affected plants.
- Choose a sunny location and provide a removable rain cover if possible.
- Pray (or at least ask the rain gods to take pity on me).
So there you have it my 10 – err 11 point plan. If anyone has any more suggestions then please post them in the comments. When fighting Mother Nature you need all the weapons you can get.
I learned something today. I always thought that as soon as you had hardened your Tomatoes off then they should go straight in the ground – assuming there’s no risk of frost, that is. But apparently there is another factor at work, that of overnight temperature.
Apparently, you’re looking for a consistent temperature of not less than 55F (12C) at night. If the temperature is lower than this then the plants may not set fruit and it might actually set the whole plant back.
I find Metcheck to be pretty good for in-depth weather reporting (in the UK at least). It seems that the temperature is still fluctuating to lows of 44F ish or even 38F here in the sunshine state of Bath. But that next week is showing a consistent night temperature over 55F.
So home-sown Tomatoes will stay tucked up under fleece for now. But next week, who knows, they might find themselves in the ground.
How are your Tomatoes doing? Any tips on other factors that affect when to plant out?
It’s time to dig out my heated propagator and start sowing some of the more delicate plants, like Tomatoes and Chilli Pepper in order to give them the best chance possible to get big and strong before I plant the out in early Summer. Tomatoes and Chillis in particular need the longest growing season I can possibly give them. So as soon as the light levels started to increase I decided to start sowing.
I find it quite useful to use a wooden stirring stick (donated by Starbucks) to cover my seeds with compost. They’re smaller than a dibber and are perfect for close work like sowing seeds.
Then I always make sure to water the seeds from below, rather than above so as not to dislodge the seeds.
I must admit I’m not a big fan of heated propagators. They do their job alright but they’re so ugly! I really don’t want something that ugly on my kitchen windowsill. Plus, no matter what I do, the condensation always leaks out. So the whole thing ends up sitting in a pool of water most of the time :(
Does anyone have a better looking one than the bog-standard black plastic tray with clear plastic lid?
Call me old-fashioned but I do like a nice Tricolore. Especially, when the Tomatoes ‘and’ the Basil come straight from the garden. There’s nothing like a nice slice of Mozzarella coupled with Tomatoes and Basil and drizzled with balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Très healthy too.
I also like Black Forest Gateaux and Arctic Roll!
I’m back! And look what was waiting for me in the garden. Heaven! We had a long drive home and I stopped off at M & S (as you do) to get some essentials since we had no food at home. I nearly bought some Lettuce (and some Tomatoes – I’ve no faith) but I didn’t, I held out. I’m soooo glad I did. We came home to a bumper crop, including tons of Tomatoes, Lettuce, Cucumber, Apples, Grapes!, Blueberries and Raspberries. Even Marks and Spencer can’t top that.
I have to say (and this is a bit embarrassing given my paranoia) our neighbours were really sweet. They picked my Raspberries and put them in a box in my freezer! They are my new best friends.
Well, I’m glad to be back (with some new interesting, foreign seeds in my seed basket) and I will be going through the comments you’ve all made today. Happy Gardening everyone – onwards and upwards!
Success! My Tomatoes are ripe. And I managed to pick these before holiday too. Brilliant. The rest of the year can be rubbish now – I have my Tomatoes. I’m happy.
My Tomatoes are beginning to ripen, yey! I have at least one Tomato nearly ready on all eight plants. That’s a potential Tomato meal before we go on holiday. Well, that’s better than last year. All my Tomatoes were pretty much green and hard at the end of Aug 2008.
This year, we’re heading towards ripeness with no…okay a tiny bit of… blight detected. I’m confident though that with the watering hand of our neighbour, and the fact that I’m growing a blight resistant variety, we’ll be returning to bucket loads of juicy, ripe Tomatoes. If not – I’ve decided to have a mini-breakdown.
What possessed me to book our holiday smack bang in the middle of Tomato season, I don’t know? Maybe it was lure of a French bargain and a heated pool? In any case, I’m hoping that Ferline will do me proud and help me on the road to Tomato recovery.
In an attempt to ripen a few early I’m trying the ‘rotting banana skin under the plant’ trick. I’ve no evidence that it works but I’m giving it a go anyway. I could take them off the plant and ripen them indoors. And there are tons of ways you can ripen green Tomatoes, but really why would you bother? They never taste anything like the vine-ripened ones and if you have green Tomatoes, it’s a great excuse to make Green Tomato Chutney. I think I’m going to take my chances on the vine.
How’s everyone else doing with their outdoor Tomatoes? Any tips for early ripening?
My Tomatoes are doing well. Despite this last week of almost continual rain they are starting to set fruit. I have eight plants in all, all outdoor. Four of them are in the sunniest bed in the garden and four in the ‘almost’ sunniest bed in the garden.
Last year, all of my Tomatoes were on the south-facing wall. They loved it until the rains came and blight set in. Now the south-facing wall is out of bounds for Tomatoes since blight can hang around in the soil year on year. But that’s okay – I’m over it. We’ll go with the sunniest bed for now.
If the rain continues, then I’ll be putting all my trust in Ferline’s reputed blight resistance – and a strategically-placed sun umbrella to keep the rain off.
Will it work? Who knows? All I know is that with small Tomatoes starting to form, it’s time to start feeding them (with Tomato feed) and crossing my fingers for fresh Tomato pasta come the end of August. How is everyone else’s Toms doing?
It’s time to transplant my Tomato seedlings from their nursery tray into individual pots. The seedlings have at least two of their larger, ‘real’ leaves and they are nice and short, green and vigorous.
I’m planting them well below the soil level that they were at in the tray. I’m trying to get them so deep in the pots that the soil almost reaches the lowest leaves (but not quite). This will encourage the plant to send out roots from the stem to make an even more sturdy and healthy plant.
All I need to do now is to fully harden them off and they will be ready to be planted in their final position in the garden.
I totally love growing Tomatoes. There are few other vegetables as satisfying to grow as Tomatoes. Now all I need to do is make sure they don’t get blight, like last year – hmmm…easier said than done.
Here’s my plan of attack (apart from the usual of removing the lower leaves on the plant)
- Plant my seedlings nowhere near where I planted them last year (blight can linger in the soil).
- Plant disease-resistant varieties (I’m going for Ferline).
- I’ll be taking special care not to water on to the leaves.
- I’ll try to control weeds in and around the plants. Weeds serve as hosts for insects and disease.
- Control insect pests (especially aphids) which may transmit disease from plant to plant.
- As soon as I see any sign of blight, that will be the death knell for that plant (harsh but necessary).
- I’m planting them in the sunniest spot in the garden.
- I might try to rig up some kind of removable rain cover (I might).
- I’ll be asking the rain gods for some nice weather this summer – well you can but ask.
If anyone has any more tips for keeping outdoor Tomatoes blight-free, let’s hear it. I need all the help I can get.
