Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: Growster... on July 18, 2021, 07:06
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While toms are being looked at elsewhere here, another issue seems to have cropped up...
We grow toms in three distinctively different spots in the garden - the greenhouse (17 plants), on a sheltered east-facing wall, (16) and on a similar wall, but very open and sunny. (16). The idea is that if blight strikes, we may get away with one of the locations, and it seems to work!
But this year, I'm trying to grow them with two plants per very large pot - the equivalent to four in a grow-bag, and they seem to have got away OK, albeit quite slowly when it was rainy and chilly. And I've noticed that on the sheltered side, there are hardly any trusses! The sunnier east side has more, and the GH is doing about average, but the trusses didn't get going on any plants until they were at least a couple of ft off the surface!
As long as the usual problems don't happen, we'll expect to be OK, but in the past, the trusses have formed much lower down the stem - we're growing Shirley, Sungold and San Marzano.
Any observations or similar from anyone?
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I’m growing tomatoes in both growbags and pots outside at home. I agree with your observation regarding a limited number of trusses. Some plants have a couple but significantly lower than last year. I can only assume due to the poor spring. Hopefully the current warm weather will give them a boost. HH
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Same here Growster, the greenhouse toms are truss-free until nearly eaves level ::)
I reckon it was because of the low light levels (especially here in the SE) for weeks on end earlier in the year.
That's why nothing seems to be doing particularly well this year :(
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Same problem, I've got Tigerella plants up to the greenhouse roof with only four small trusses on.
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Erm, I have a bought Ailsa Craig and Gardeners' Delight planted in each side of a large grow bag. I put them in one of those green tom pots which has a central square for planting (and where you apply dilute feed later on), and a larger square surrounding the central one where you apply water. I did the same with another grow bag for a bought plum tom and a home-grown one which took ages to get going. I seem to have trusses growing and spaced out as normal but all the stems decided to bifurcate at will despite me pinching out their axil leaves and now they're touching the roof complete with more trusses. As can be seen in pic Toms 1, I have never seen such a lot of dark green healthy leaves on my toms, and despite the lonely climbing dwarf French bean hardly doing a thing until last week when it decided to throw out some side stems at long last (I've only ever needed one plant to produce enough beans to give away), they seem to be getting there. BTW, the plants on the left are some sweet corn.
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Phew, thank you all...
I thought it might be a tricky year, so took every precaution, but seeing plants a mile high with *** all on them is different!
I wanted to experiment with having a closer cultivation set-up, and two plants per pot to cut down on space, rather like they do commercially, and this just could be a consequence, but if chums here are getting the same result, I'll put it down to a lousy spring, stuttering summer, and now a blasted heatwave...
I'm also trying to let the indeterminate toms do their stuff, by letting them have just one sideshoot going, thereby lessening the height and getting five or six trusses, (they block out the light from the lounge window), and see what happens!
I'll let you know, but as I'm a new age tomoz, I may be late to the forum...
(We've just had a fabulous BBQ with a gorgeous daughter and are feeling great, as she's given me an iPhone, and such a toy to an old Growster is just fantastically marvellous)!
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Just as an update, we have a couple of Sungold toms today - they usually arrive by my birthday (last Monday), but not this year!
Last year, we had our first toms on 4th July, so at this rate they'll all be really late, as the GH toms are up to the ridge now...
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I have been picking Maskotka cherry tomatoes for a couple of weeks now and they are coming in numbers.
The greenhouse tomatoes are all beefsteaks, so they are late every year. Had 3 so far, but lots of green fruit. They don’t seem that different to other years.
The plot ones (all blight resistant varieties) are fine and are starting to hold quite a lot of green fruit.
I think they are all a week or so behind normal, but I am feeding them every week and they are catching up I think :unsure:
Nothing much to do but see how it goes :)
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Just as contrast, I started really late this year and have taken virtually no care of the plants - I've fed them once. Trusses are as expected first ones around 12" and I picked the first of the sungold this morning. It does tend to suggest the poor weather at the start of the season has had an effect.
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The plot ones (all blight resistant varieties) are fine and are starting to hold quite a lot of green fruit
Even Crimson Crush got hammered here, on several plots so, it may be blight resistant, but it ain't blightproof :(
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The plot ones (all blight resistant varieties) are fine and are starting to hold quite a lot of green fruit
Even Crimson Crush got hammered here, on several plots so, it may be blight resistant, but it ain't blightproof :(
Just heard yesterday, that the old allotments have got the dreaded blight, and one good chum, who grows the best heritage toms I've ever seen, is away on holday...
I'd like to help, but think he's 'organic' now..:0(
A couple of years ago, Mum, I tried an experiment with CC seed taken from the previous year. Several plants reverted and died from blight, but some went on to ignore any blight and romped home! I should have done more, but we then gave up 'The Patch', and didn't have the room for experiments as big as that!
Sadly, I've lost the seed anyway :0(
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Just as an update, we have a couple of Sungold toms today - they usually arrive by my birthday (last Monday), but not this year!
Last year, we had our first toms on 4th July, so at this rate they'll all be really late, as the GH toms are up to the ridge now...
I am only now seeing a few red tomatoes on my F1 Piccolo today but not many all the other varieties as green and nowhere near ripe yet. I am saying two weeks behind normal and showing a bit of blight damage. I resprayed this morning since we had a light shower and it is very warm and humid. It has been a really tough year so far.
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Growster, I would chalk up poor flowering to lower-than-optimum light (true for most flowering plants!). My understanding is that this year has been unusually difficult, at least early on.
Last year, I grew tomatoes in various places in what I call my "forest edge plot". I grew tomatoes all over the place, mostly trying to gauge which areas could have enough light to be productive in the future (and worth trying to develop into permanent garden beds). Most of the tomatoes had at least some fruit, but some clearly did better than others (plants with the most light) while others were much worse (plants with the most shade). Other than that, conditions were more or less the same for all of those plants.
If you are trending toward more sun but hotter/drier, keep them watered, they will produce fruit eventually.
Good luck!
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Just as an update, we have a couple of Sungold toms today - they usually arrive by my birthday (last Monday), but not this year!
Last year, we had our first toms on 4th July, so at this rate they'll all be really late, as the GH toms are up to the ridge now...
I am only now seeing a few red tomatoes on my F1 Piccolo today but not many all the other varieties as green and nowhere near ripe yet. I am saying two weeks behind normal and showing a bit of blight damage. I resprayed this morning since we had a light shower and it is very warm and humid. It has been a really tough year so far.
They grow Piccolo here https://www.thanetearth.com/our-products/tomatoes Jambop, and flog them to Tesco! I did challenge them a couple of years ago, as they claimed that their tom stems reached 8 metres!
When I have less time, I'll see if they altered that...;0)
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Growster, I would chalk up poor flowering to lower-than-optimum light (true for most flowering plants!). My understanding is that this year has been unusually difficult, at least early on.
Last year, I grew tomatoes in various places in what I call my "forest edge plot". I grew tomatoes all over the place, mostly trying to gauge which areas could have enough light to be productive in the future (and worth trying to develop into permanent garden beds). Most of the tomatoes had at least some fruit, but some clearly did better than others (plants with the most light) while others were much worse (plants with the most shade). Other than that, conditions were more or less the same for all of those plants.
If you are trending toward more sun but hotter/drier, keep them watered, they will produce fruit eventually.
Good luck!
Thanks SubP!
We grow toms in three distinctive areas, and hope/expect that at least one spot will flourish! The sheltered ones are indeed requiring more light, while the sunnier ones are probably in front of the whole lot, even the GH ones! Last year, it was the other way round!
As long as we can keep the dreaded blight at bay, we should be alright - cup half full all the time here...
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They grow Piccolo here https://www.thanetearth.com/our-products/tomatoes Jambop, and flog them to Tesco! I did challenge them a couple of years ago, as they claimed that their tom stems reached 8 metres!
When I have less time, I'll see if they altered that...;0)
When I visited Flavourfresh back in 2008 they had stems that long. Combination of climate control, enhanced CO2, computer controlled hydroponic growing feed solution and grafted plants. I'm sure 27 trusses per plant was mentioned.
Picking was done from lifting platforms.
Incidentally, the bio-security rivalled a hospital (pre-pandemic) to prevent viral diseases getting in.
https://www.allotment-garden.org/garden-diary/236/visit-to-flavourfresh-tomatoes/
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I grow my Picollo F1's as bush plants. Then in a normal season produce about 15 trusses of perfect really sweet tomatoes... this year they are late and have a touch of blight but I still hope that we will get some nice trusses. My Roma and San Marzano have some nice trusses but they are all green so I am hoping for some summer weather soon to bring them along. I usually conserve all of those so lateness is not a problem provided the ripen and blight is not an ongoing problem.
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Hellfire John, that's a heck of a size plant, but just checking their site they actually claim a stem length of 15 metres, that's nearly fifty feet - six storeys on an average house!
I'm sure their greenhouses aren't that tall, so have to assume that they drop the lower parts of the stem when each truss has finished!
I don't really mind of course, as they are doing a great job in Thanet - you can see their greenhouses for miles!
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I'm sure their greenhouses aren't that tall, so have to assume that they drop the lower parts of the stem when each truss has finished!
Yes, they do, pictures somewhere of the stems laying down, bending round at the back end of the row and growing back up again in the next row...
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Commercial growers do drop the strings as things go on but those glasshouses are pretty big. I reckon the roof was about 12m to the peaks, but that's a guess.
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A slight deviation from the discussion.
I should like the 'vegetable scientific manipulators ' reduce the gap between trusses on the tomato plants, (In my greenhouse anyway).
Cheers, Tony. :)
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I’m intending on trying to lower the strings on my tunnel toms this year, fingers crossed, first time for everything as it’s my first year with the tunnel (think the roof is 2.4 m, hubby informs me). I’ve got gripple wires from crop bar to crop bar & the strings are tied to the gripple wires.
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Be careful lowering the plants - too fast and you may snap the stem, which I've seen done.
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Some soft fruits, like rasps like being bent over at the top, and it's said that they fruit better that way. I think I agree, but I used to just tie them horzontally along a wire about 4 ft off the ground. I don't bother now, as Joan J are so late and flourish well anyway, but why not consider doing this to toms?
Our GH toms are right up into the roof of the GH and the decision now, is whether to move them around, or cut one's losses and pinch them out...
A good chum lets her toms go well into the late autumn, with some at 10 ft or more, but then, she has a GH as big as the Albert Hall...
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I find that the humidity here being in wet Wales near the coast means we're battling fungal disease at the end of the season. So keeping them going too long is pointless :(
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I find that the humidity here being in wet Wales near the coast means we're battling fungal disease at the end of the season. So keeping them going too long is pointless :(
With normal conditions I can keep my plants until the start of October and sometimes near the end but this year we are getting some very strange weather. Today it is really quite chilly for the time of year probably about 22 max today. Tomatoes will grow in these temperatures but we need some sunshine to get the plants growing. I am quite concerned because I like to get my tomatoes bottled with a good sugar content you need some sun for that.
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I find that the humidity here being in wet Wales near the coast means we're battling fungal disease at the end of the season. So keeping them going too long is pointless :(
I'd not considered that, John. As we still have a doxen or so frozen bags of toms from last year, We may well need them for the coming season...
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The other thing to consider is light levels fall off and winter daylength reduces - more so as you go north. But we get longer midsummer days :)
Light levels do affect tomatoes a lot - hence the huge investment into glass houses rather than polytunnels by commercial growers looking to extend the season.
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The other thing to consider is light levels fall off and winter daylength reduces - more so as you go north. But we get longer midsummer days :)
Light levels do affect tomatoes a lot - hence the huge investment into glass houses rather than polytunnels by commercial growers looking to extend the season.
The daylight thing is funny down here. We get much less in terms of long summer evenings but in the winter we get much longer daylight hours in winter it does not get dark until about 5.30pm. So it is good in the spring for getting seeds germinated and things in the ground growing in early February but in the summer it is usually dark by 10pm . I am sure we get our fair share of light it just comes at different times :lol:
At the moment I have a lot of tomatoes growing on the vines and if I can just get them ripened I will have plenty for bottling for the winter. Summer salad use is going to be late though mid August probably :nowink:
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I am sure we get our fair share of light it just comes at different times
I'm sure you do but our summer days are longer and winter shorter whereas your daylengths are more equal. The weather variations seem to be getting wilder, something the met office and climate scientists agree. Summer weather early in spring, cool summer suddenly changing to heatwave all confuses the plants as much if not more than the gardener!
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"The weather variations seem to be getting wilder, something the met office and climate scientists agree. Summer weather early in spring, cool summer suddenly changing to heatwave all confuses the plants as much if not more than the gardener!"
Even in the short time I have been living and gardening here I have seen some major variations in the weather pattern. I cannot say if this is something that will keep evolving or if it is just temporary glitches but when the locals start muttering about it you know something is up :lol:
One thing I have always done while growing vegs down here is use varieties of onions that I know for example this year I have grown Bedfordshire champion and Sturon as well as long red Florence. I have grown them Charles Dowding stylee three or four together. The Bedfordshire Champs have definitely done the best with some really lovely onions followed by the red Florence ( does not keep though) and Sturon not so well. I know there are different types of daylength onions but does the length of day make a huge difference to the growth of onions in Europe ? Next year because I cannot get seed from the UK anymore I will try sowing the BC seeds I have left from this year and if they germinate I will grow them only for keeping and Trebons and red Florence for during growing season use . If they do not germinate I will have to buy some variety that is available in GC's here as I do not like using sets. The other alternative is the transplants sold at the local market which are cheap and very good too.