This is the time of year when I go tomato crazy. Suddenly I’ve gone from eating relatively few tomatoes to buying punnet loads from the shops. There is no doubt that if you go for the British Grown logo on the front of the pack they taste 100% better than most of the others, but it is late July when my tastebuds go crazy for what I call REAL tomatoes, those picked fresh and often a bit warm from the greenhouse, not just in ones and twos as you get at the beginning of the season, but by the bucket load.
Home grown tomatoes, complete with that love-it or hate-it slightly tom-cat-like aroma that you get on your hands as you touch the foliage, are IT!
This year I’ve got lots of different sorts. These include the candidates for next year’s Gardeners’ World Magazine article on ‘Tomatoes for cooking’ and a whole host of extras that I just couldn’t resist, including some of my Italian favourites such as the ox heart and some I was sent to trial called ‘Piccolo’. There are rarely any of these on the plants when I get there – the smaller gardeners in the family wait for them to ripen like a pair of vultures! Certainly one I’ll have next year.
Fingers crossed, none of the outdoor tomatoes have got blight yet, despite the fact that the potatoes went down in style a couple of weeks ago. If they reach ripening point this will be the first year in the last eight that I have actually managed a good crop of outdoor toms with no blight…
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I am growing tomatoes too for second year and they are coming on with plenty of flowers on them. I hope I get tomatoes this year. Last year they were green. When is it you nip the top of them?
I have grown tomatoes in large pots outdoors and there is plenty of fruit but when should they ripen?
I have already ripped up and binned three tomoato plants (Sungold) which had become infected with grey mould. The leaves turned crinkly and were spotted and then they go black. Then the fruit showed the same black blotches. I think the disease came from my courgettes. Now my ten Gardeners Delight tomatoes are showing early signs of the same problem. Can I treat them with anything to save them – I have invested heavily in care (water, feed and plenty of air around them) but…….??
The tomatoes in my greenhouse have all died. I think it is blight and it even spread to some outside. Has anyone else had this problem and how can I stop it happening next year?
You’re lucky you even got some fruit!! Mine went without a fruit in sight. Help!!
I should have said (06/08/07 above) mine are in bottomless pots outside in 3 grow bags with 1 litre upside down, bottomless tonic bottles in the bags to get the water down to the roots. I think we are suffering from too much wet earlier in the season and too little air round the plants. Grey mould/blight/botritis? Can I spray them and what with? There is now a definite slowing in growth both of plant and fruit.
If Marybakers are outside perhaps 5 trusses would be enough and then reduce the size of each truss to 8-10 fruits to encourage ripening.
Same for Terry and for Margaret J perhaps a winter wash down of the greenhouse with Jeyes fluid and then plenty of ventilation next season?
Ruffy:
It sounds more like blight to me, only likely to be grey mould or botrytis if there is a distincy fuzzyness! If its blight then they need to be bagged up and binned or burned, if it is grey mould severe cutting out of dodgy bits and improved air circulation combined with never wetting the foliage/topgrowth when you water may do the trick!
Terry:
Outdoor romatoes will be ripe at varying times, depending on the weather, the variety and the stage of growth they are at, if mine hadn’t got blight they would have been ready to produce their first crop a few weeks ago.
Margaret and seaside Girl:
You could try closing the vents on the side form which the prevailing wind comes as this will reduce the influx of blight spores…..once infected blight is nigh impossible to control, but you could spray preventatively with a copper based fungicide next time around!
Thanks for the advice Pippa – all plants now binned.
Can the compost be spread on the flower beds or is it too contaminated?
The next question is what to plant for a crop by Christmas? – I need something and I shall be lost without something to care for every day for an hour or two a day!!
Apologies for hogging the blog – having cleared and binned the toms I can see my runner bean plants and the lower stems look as though……
Can runners catch the dreaded blight?
I am growing moneymaker tomatoes, but I have a problem in that a lot of the fruit has developed dark spots on their base (where the flower was) and now others have developed brown blotchy patches on their skin. I have removed all the tomatoes that are like this. As a first time tomato grower, what is going on and will I get any edible fruit at the end of this? P.S. they are all still decidedly green!
i have plenty of green tomatoes this year and not one single red one. think i will give it a miss next year and just stick to growing my vegs.
My tomatoes have been ok-ish, no blight (grown in a greenhouse, can’t grow outdoor one’s up here)And plenty of green one’s. I was thinking about stripping the toms off now and bringing them into the house to ripen, would it be too soon to do this??
it good to here that someone has got a good crop of tomatoes i lost all mine this is the first time in 25 years that i have had tomato blight.
help please, i have bucket loads of tomatoes growing, my four year old daughter and i grew them from seed, so we have some in the ground ,some in pots and some in the green house, they are green and dont seem to be ripening and now that time is ticking on and frost round the corner i dont want to waste them, especially because my wee girl is very attached to her toms. Any ideas???
We had a bad year too this year with our tommies, they were set off outside and then taken into the greenhouse in the hopes they wold ripen but to no avail! Sadly we have now binned them completeley and have fingers crossed to start afresh next year!
I had two types in my tunnel this year, Italian beef and money maker, they both got blight but I managed to salvage the moneymaker fruits, i had the same problem with them not ripening quickly enough for the plant to survive the blight! so i picked all the fruit kept in two large bowls in the conservatory and as the fruit ripened I transferred to the fridge for use. worked a treat.
what did surprise me though, considering all the worry, fussing and concern I give my tomato plants I was surprised to find a plant had self seeded from the site I grew them last year and with no attention whatsoever I harvested 20 tomatoes! make me wonder?
Hello, Does anyone know how to ripen green tomatoes in the house? Mine are all still green.
Hi Mary, it was an horrendous year for many outdoor crops and so if out door toms did not get blight then they still may not have ripened. Don’t give up, it is NOT always like it was this year, promise!!! Must admit though, I grow most of my toms under cover – can get some great mini greenhouses or frames or plastci pop-up type covers, and they make a huge difference!
Ruffy – no, luckily blight doesn’t attack runner beans ….though this year a stem/root rot or grey mould may well have been involved!
To all those who want to know about ripening tomatoes indoors. yes, provided they are disease free (and certainly with no lurking blight infections!) tomatoes can be ripened inside – the best method is to bag them up, paper bag ideally with some over-ripe bananas – the bananas give of ethylene which acts as a ripening agent! Problem is bananas rarely get the chance to get over ripe in our house!
Hi, I’m only 12 and this has been the first time I have grown veggies and as a beginner I started small; I only grow 2 types of carrot, red lettuce, wild rocket, bell peppers and radishes. I feel for everyone who has ruined crops because I lost all my onions and was very upset! I grow everything in my greenhouse and hate to say my tomatoes are great and are still flowering! I grow Harbinger tomatoes and they are delicious! I will defiantly recommend them! Hope you have more luck next year! Grace
Hiya. I grew the free tomato seeds given away with Gardeners World at the beginning of the year and they were great! We have only just finished eating them. I would like to grow them again next year but can’t remember what they were called – can anyone remind me?
I do not have a garden, and want to grow tomatoes on my dining table or rather small kitchen window. Can you suggest a variety which produces continually and will grow back next season? Thanks.
Please can you help. My tomatoes looked lovely and healthy a few days ago but now are curling up with mottled black and white leaves. They have been well cared for, so where am I going wrong? What is blight?
having just transplanted some of my tomato plants from my greenhouse to my allotment,[outside],the leaves have gone very anemic and yellow in colour,is there anything i can do to help them?
having grown some very sturdy tom plants in a greenhouse, but still with no fruit. i now seem to have little roots growing from the stems and branches… can anyone tell me if this is a good sign or bad?
Help new to growing tomatoes,leaves all curling rounds and dark areas on them ,have got one plat with flower but not on other tomatoes plants ,What am I doing wrong,please please help.
Hi me again ,have stripped all tomato plants of curled up yellow and brown leaves and can not believe they seem to be coming back to life.But still no sign of tomatoes yet fingers crossed.On a good note first time for growing cauli broccali and peppers and lettuce green beans all seem to be thriving. Any tips on the pesky tomato plants should they be indoors,mine are all out. Happy gardening.
Can you give any advice about the scare of contaminated compost. I have an allotment in Manchester and purchased manure in February. How can I find out if it is safe?
My tomatoes are growing nicely with lots of fruit but I think I need to spray with a fungicide to be sure of healthy fruit. Is it OK to spray fruit and leaves now?
My neighbours tomaotoes were ripe weeks ago (he wasn’t sure what type they are other than it was a girls name) but my tomatoes in a greenhouse about 10 feet from his are big and fat but are still all green, they’re moneymakers. Surely they should be getting ripe by now or this normal for moneymakers?
I am also growing Gardener’s Delight for the first time this year. I plan to bring the toms inside to ripen but I’ve read that ripening them with ripe bananas can diminish the taste. I have three plants each with three to four trusses. I could remove three trusses (one from each plant) now and hope the other trusses will develop more. I am considering defoliating more of the plants to aid ripening in my glasshouse.
To Grace – I was so impressed to read that you have your own greenhouse. I’ve only been taking an interest in plants for a year and part of me wishes I had started sooner in life… I’m in my 40′s now. Keep at it, it sounds as though you are doing great!
End of Aug and no ripe fruit (sigh)but plants very healthy both greenhouse & outdoor. I tried new trick to encourage great root system: when transferring from small pots to open soil; plant out VERY deep so only 12cm pokes out (strip off all leafs which would be below ground). Infill planting hole really lightly – dont heel in or anything. Doesnt help fruit to set, but you get amazingly strong healthy plants !
I don’t have any toms but wondered if any of your readers could advise whether it is possible to get bonsai tomato plants (i live in a small flat)
Hi Lorraine again…What a disaster There I was saying cauli and broccoli doing well then a attack of green furry caterpillars, they ate the lot so sad and disappointed where did I go wrong. Toms are now growing on plants after the leaves all went yellow and curled up so I stripped leaves and got toms how strange.all still green though!!!What next will they ever ripen? Next job when should i cut lavender back that is taking over the garden? Happy gardening.
I’ve just lost 5 bush Marmande and potentially about to lose the other 8 to blight (decimated in 24 hours). No loss really as only the lowest trusses were fruiting and had no chance to ripen. However, 9 Shirleys are doing well, 6 outside bearing large (green) fruit and 3 in the greenhouse just beginning to redden. Notes to self for next year: sow indoors earlier, pot up earlier in greenhouse, space them out to prevent spore travel, spray with copper fungicide, move abroad; awful year again wasn’t it!?
I have grown my first ever crop of tomatoes very successfully, but need to ripen them. They are in a draw with a ripe banana, and I know this sounds stupid, but no-one says whether to peel it or not. Help please.
My tomato plants were all lovely and healthy into August and plenty of ruit trusses and then we had 3 weeks of poor weather and rain etc – all the tomatoe plants went brown and seemed to be dying. I think it must be blight and didn’t know – I took off all the tomatoes and tried to ripen them by putting out in what ever sunshine we had or keeping in a bowl in warm kitchen – most of them went rotten and had to be thrown away – I put everything including the plants into my compost bin… now I’ve read that all blighted plants should have been destroyed and put out with rubbish – help what shall I do about my compost bin its 3/4 full and breaking down nicely I thought – now it seems its infected with blight???
I am growing some tomatoes for the first time. I have three plants in a long trough growing niely up a trelace. I had noticed that the bottom leaves had gone yellowish and heard that this meant to start feeding them. Which I did and they are recovering nicely and I now have some small fruits growing too. What I would like to no is what is the best food to give them. I have some wilkinsons own brand tomato food and I also have some miracle grow that can also be used on toms. However it has at least twice the amount of nutrients that the tom food has. Which am I best with please?
Ben, Norfolk
you need a high potash feed,(that is high in potassium). I use tomatorite and wilkos own brand too. I got loads of fruits but am waiting in anticipation for them to ripen! I feed mine every wednesday but think you can do it more often… I read somewhere that too much feed can damage too, so that why i do it once a week. I have grown tomatoes a couple of yrs ago but didnt get much out of it because i didnt put much effort in. This year i caught the gardening bug and love it!
I was given two tom’ plants by a friend so have no idea what variety they are and it’s also the first time I have grown them. As I live in a flat they are in my bathroom and I have to say have done really well. It was only this weekend that I picked the fruit (they have only just recently ripened) and boy were they tasty! I don’t seem to have had much bother with them, just the occasional feed and bug spray.
Just got into growing tomatoes last spring and had alot of success with ‘Gardener’s Delight’ variety. http://www.practicalhomeandgarden.com/growing-tomatoes
Im going to try using one of these upside down planters this coming season – wondered if anyone else has had much success with them – I have read moxed reveiews – http://www.practicalhomeandgarden.com/how-to-make-your-own-upside-down-tomato-planter
when do i pick my tomatoes do i wait for them to go red or do pick then green and ripen them indoors