Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Growing in Greenhouses & Polytunnels => Topic started by: hubballi on August 10, 2012, 18:12
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I have mixed success in my greenhouse. Some toms are quite big and well formed, others like Gardener's delight are very small and quite poor (they are supposed to be one of the best varieties to grow) I have them in my lean-to greenhouse with many toms that have stayed the same for a few weeks without ripening. I have shade netting on to keep the temp down during hot weather.
Should I take it off to help ripen or will this harm them ? :ohmy:
Thanks.
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It'll fry them.
Easier solution is to throw in some banana skins. (I kid you not).
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As DD say's plus strip off the leaves below the bottom truss.
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As DD say's plus strip off the leaves below the bottom truss.
That does rather depend on where the bottom truss is ... with my cordon tomatoes, the first truss is at 3' high so I'd be losing rather a lot of leaves.
I'm not convinced by the need to remove leaves anyway as I think it can weaken the plant's ability to make food / energy.
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Like Yorkie, the lowest trusses on mine are about 3' off the ground (the plants grew pale and leggy and I was a bit slow off the mark realisig that it was due to nutrient-deficient compost rather than lack of warmth and light.)
As a result one of my Sweet Million has a main stem about 9' long zig-zagging across and up the greenhouse :ohmy: but even so has only about 5 trusses. Because the lower leaves were mottled and pale I've removed most of them anyway, but normally I'd only remove them if they were dying off or severely congested.
Good idea not to fry tomatoes before you pick them, but I think it's also about making a judgement about the number of fruits you allow to develop and whether there's sufficient time and energy in the plant for them all to grow to full size and ripen.
Hopefully still plenty of time yet, but it doesn't pay to be too greedy unless you like green tomato chutney! ::)
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My Tigerella have good size toms but Brandywaide and G-Delight are quite puny. Quite exited about Tigerella as not tried them. I nipped the tops off the leggy plants to help them produce better fruit but it hasn't really done much.
The trouble is my greenhouse is very congested and I think this is half the problem with leaves in the way. The plants are green and healthy (I fed them with small amount of poultry manure mixed in Comfry) as they were pale a few weeks ago. I have no option but to cut a few selected leaves off to make space and light.I knew a guy who insisted on cutting off all the leaves at the end of the season to get great toms. Bit too scared to do that myself :ohmy:
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Tigerella have a lovely flavour - so will be well worth the wait. Many of us have tomatoes that are still green - it has been that sort of year - maybe the sunshine of the last few days will help - we just have to be patient.
As for removing leaves from tomatoes - everyone has their own personal views. I follow my grandfathers and fathers ideas on this. Once the bottom trusses are almost fully formed I remove the leaves up to the truss but not beyond. Once those tomatoes have ripened if the next lot of leaves are shading the tomatoes on the next trusses I would remove those leaves but only the leaves that are doing the shading. My GF and dad always had good tomatoes and I usually have a reasonable crop following this. Another thing that they both told me was not to crowd the GH too much - the plants get much better light and air and there is less risk of disease.
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It'll fry them.
Easier solution is to throw in some banana skins. (I kid you not).
The reason that ripening fruit (i.e. banana skins) works is that they produce the gas ethylene that acts as a fruit ripening hormone. If you don't pick your very first ripe tomatoes, they themselves, will act as a ripening agent for all the others.
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I often wondered how it worked. :nowink:
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My Tigerella have good size toms but Brandywaide and G-Delight are quite puny. Quite exited about Tigerella as not tried them. I nipped the tops off the leggy plants to help them produce better fruit but it hasn't really done much.
The trouble is my greenhouse is very congested and I think this is half the problem with leaves in the way. The plants are green and healthy (I fed them with small amount of poultry manure mixed in Comfry) as they were pale a few weeks ago. I have no option but to cut a few selected leaves off to make space and light.I knew a guy who
Tigerella hAs DD say's plus strip off the leaves below the bottom truss.
As DD say's plus strip off the leaves below the bottom truss.
ave a lovely flavour - so will be well worth the wait. Many of us have tomatoes that are still green - it has been that sort of year - maybe the sunshine of the last few days will help - we just have to be patient.
As for removing leaves from tomatoes - everyone has their own personal views. I follow my grandfathers and fathers ideas on this. Once the bottom trusses are almost fully formed I remove the leaves up to the truss but not beyond. Once those tomatoes have ripened if the next lot of leaves are shading the tomatoes on the next trusses I would remove those leaves but only the leaves that are doing the shading.My Tigerella have good size toms but Brandywaide and G-Delight are quite puny. Quite exited about Tigerella as not tried them. I nipped the tops off the leggy plants to help them produce better fruit but it hasn't really done much.
The trouble is my greenhouse is very congested and I think this is half the problem with leaves in the way. The plants are green and healthy (I fed them with small amount of poultry manure mixed in Comfry) as they were pale a few weeks ago. I have no option but to cut a few selected leaves off to make space and light.I knew a guy who insisted on cutting off all the leaves at the end of the season to get great toms. Bit too scared to do that myself :ohmy:
My GF and dad always had good tomatoes and I usually have a reasonable crop following this. Another thing that they both told me was not to crowd the GH too much - the plants get much better light and air and there is less risk of disease.
Great to read that Tigerella is still being grown, I wonder if the other striped tomato Tiger Tom is still available. It is interesting to remember about thirty years ago tomato breeders bred these two varieties for their taste. The stripes were bred in as a marker to show they were different to the usual tasteless red balls sold in the shops. Unfortunately this brilliant idea never caught on! But kids love their stripes and their taste.
I wonder also if they breed true from your own saved seeds. Old varieties like Ailsa Craig do, modern F1 hybrids do not.
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All tomatoes are still green at the moment so it's not just yours Hub. Patience is a virtue. Relax. They'll ripen. Go drape them in nana skins, it will keep your hands busy :)
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It is so hard to be patient - cannot wait to taste a lovely home grown tom. Yummm.
This is probably a silly question but I am going to ask it anyway. The tomatoes in my GH are all different sizes (as I am sure most peeps toms are). If I was to drape some nana skins around would it make the small tomatoes ripen as well as the full size ones because I would prefer the small ones to grow a bit more.
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They won't start to ripen until they reach full size, so don't worry, Springlands :)
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They won't start to ripen until they reach full size, so don't worry, Springlands :)
Thanks Sunny - think I will snack on a nana and then experiment - have never tried this before - then we have never had such a bad year in a long time. :)
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I accidentally cut off one of my huge Black Sea Man fruits when I was gung ho removing spent leaves.
It has been in the fruit bowl with the bananas, basking in emitted ethylene, and is now, a week later, changing colour nicely :nowink:
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I know it gets very tempting with the first ones - but after that I'm in no hurry to remove the next ones until they are really ripe, cos they speed up the ripening of the next lot, and so on :)
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Well I have put quite a few banana skins inside the greenhouse hanging around and so fat (after a few days) it hasn't made any difference.
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I've heard that putting banana skins in the greenhouse will stop any more fruit setting.
What's the hurry? Last year I was picking ripe tomatoes in late November and they still tasted better than shop-bought ones
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I've heard that putting banana skins in the greenhouse will stop any more fruit setting.
Speaking from experience - it doesn't ;)
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Why do I always get conflicting advice here :nowink: banana skins good or bad ?
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Headgardener said
I've heard that putting banana skins in the greenhouse will stop any more fruit setting.
He's heard that - but my experience is that they don't stop more fruit setting.
I found they did help to ripen fruit that was nearly ripe already :)
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Banana skins give off the same ripening 'gases' that some other fruit do, so chuck some around Hubbali, and don't worry!
We're more worried about blight than getting anything else, so you're very lucky to have anything to ripen anyway!
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It's ok, I keep my greenhouse shut so no blight.
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It's ok, I keep my greenhouse shut so no blight.
How do the bees get in then?
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It's ok, I keep my greenhouse shut so no blight.
How do the bees get in then?
And you might have problems with mildew because the air is still and damp.
Well, I do not know if it is just nature taking its course or if the nana skins are doing their work BUT I have two tomatoes finally on the turn. :)
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Must have about 10 skins in now but they haven't made a blind bit if difference. It must be an old wives tale.
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Tomatoes will only ripen if they are developed enough to turn ripe.
If they are still small green bullets they have to finish growing up before they can turn red.
Etylene has been proven to ripen tomatoes- otherwise why would some farmers spray it onto under ripe tomatoes to get them to ripen while on their way to the supermarket.
But as has already been said it only works if the tomatoes are close to turning!
Just relax and let nature do its thing, as the summer has been dull, and as you have told us you have a garden with a high wall, and debris netting over the greenhouse, and the green house is over crowded all of this things will slow ripening.
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Mine have started to ripen at last - have had two so far - so whether it was the bananas skins or whether or not nature took its course it is hard to say. It has definitely been a difficult growing season.
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It must be an old wives tale.
Don't be so dismissive when everyone is trying to help you. I'll underline what mobile mobilkat says, it's scientifically proven that ethylene gas will hasten ripening and as others have said the tomatoes must have reached their full size.
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I am happy to report that the Tigerella toms are ripening very well :lol:
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:ohmy: :ohmy: :ohmy: :ohmy: :ohmy: :ohmy: :ohmy: :ohmy: :ohmy:
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I am happy to report that the Tigerella toms are ripening very well :lol:
Well done - let us know what they taste like.
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Well, I had an excuse to assassinate my
triffids, bush tomatoes today and let some air and light into that end of the tunnel. Some were showing black on their leaves and stems so I needed no further excuse. Now I have to find a way of ripening a supermarket basket full of the things
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My Tigerella's have snapped the stem they were growing on. Still a small fibre of the stem connected so bandaged it and supported it. This happened with another plant and astonishingly enough it carried on growing as if nothing happened.
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I can defininately support the idea that bananas help to ripen green tomatoes. At the end of the season when I am clearing out my plants, I pick all green tomatoes regardless of size, place them on newspaper in a drawer in my kitchen with a banana and leave them for a couple of weeks. Come back at regular intervals and take the red ones out. Worked a treat and meant I was able to still have home grown tomatoes well into November.
Get noshing nana's!!!