September 13, 2011

Tomato News

This year has been horrific for blight. Allotment and both greenhouses all infected. It's a sad sad sight to see.

However, we have had /some/ tomatoes, with a certain amount of success compared to last year on the large variaties. For the first time we've managed to get 'big' tomatoes (although they're not ripening up so well!). Normally by the time they start to get going the frost comes and everything dies. Medium and cherry have been the successes of the past, but this year our cherries have been terrible - the GD (my favourite!) are all huge! Definite 'small tomato' size rather than cherry size. And the sweet million, which should be tiny, are GD sized! And the GD don't taste like GD, either. Oddly, there are some still growing which are still GD sized, so maybe it was something that went odd earlier in the season (it's been a funny year!) and these will be ok, if they get to maturity.

I had Shirley on the allotment, which lasted much longer than anyone else's before succumbing to the dreaded, but they've gone now, too. (Also the volunteer tomatoes under the sweetcorn all went about the same time, but no idea what variety they would have been)

Of the 'odd' varities, the cream sausage that I picked up from Hampshire potato day were the first to get anywhere near ripe, have produced well, turned out to be determinate, which I didn't expect ... and were also the first to be caught by the blight. :-( Been cutting out the infected bits of plant whilst trying to help the fruit ripen, but there's not a lot of plant left now! They're not spectacular tasting, but they're ok.

And for the first time ever, my Pineapple tomatoes have made it to fruit! This is the end of a packet from 3-4 years ago, every year previously they've either not germinated, or not thrived. I've just gone out and I have 1 plant (there was only one 'good' one - my dad had the other that was ok, but he got July hail, and apparently all the leaves went white spotty where the hail hit!!) and it has 3 or 4 large, ridged bright orange fruits! I will be interested in the tasting!

Almost forgot to mention - got stripey tomatoes for the first time. Not listed as Tigerella, they were "striped cherry" on the packet (from Hampshire, again), but they're not cherry sized. But then, maybe they had the same issue as the GD. I've never managed to get Tigerella to stripe in the past.

And I bought (from Seeds of Distinction - need to get in touch and grumble) a packet of Teton du Venus, which are meant to be yellow and pear shaped. Not a single one germinated! I did get 1 plant, but I think it must have washed in from another module, cos if Venus had tetons like that she'd have fallen over!

Posted by Andwynn at 10:26 AM