[missmoneypenny]

Just following on from the blight thread, which is now locked. Jambop made the point that pot/ greenhouse grown tomatoes cannot rival outdoor grown for flavour. . I don’t have a greenhouse and grow Black Russian, Ferline  and occasionally Roma but have found the later more blight prone.
Sorry this is an outright boast. My French cousin told me my Black Russians were as good as those at his local market in Provence . I think soil quality is important. My belief is the more you prepare the soil with kitchen compost/ well rotted manure the more those minerals will make their way into the tomato and enrich the flavour.

[Aunt Sally]

I absolutely agree.  If you compare the taste of a home grown tomato grown in soil/compost with a supermarket one grown on hydroponics there is no contest!

[Plot 1 Problems]

I have the best of both worlds, I have proper soil beds inside the polytunnel. All the heat the plants love, plus decent, well ammended soil to feed them!

[missmoneypenny]

I grow some tomatoes in pots in my back yard for convenience, they are not close to the allotment ones for flavour. And a lot less productive too.

[missmoneypenny]

Plot1, I’d love a poly tunnel as that would give blight protection and heat. I’m too mean with my plot space though.

[jambop]

Tomatoes grown in the open ground with the kind of constantly warm conditions they require are without doubt the best for flavour... and in my garden at least... uniformity of size and quality of tomato. I do not use tomatoes that are not up to scratch simply because when you grow 30 plants you get an abundance of really good fruit why would you even think of eating something that is just not right? Any tomato that does not come up to the mark from my lot goes straight into the compost bin.
One thing that does come to mind in terms of growing tomatoes out doors. Down here there is a school of thought that number one you never water the plants after the first time when you plant them out and number two you never feed your tomatoes. Now I have to say I do water my plants when they need it because we get some scorching weather from time to time and long spells of dry weather but I never give my plants feed and I get really cracking tomatoes and it is not unusual to get up to six trusses of ripen fruit.
I do have the chance to use a product that is not available in the UK which greatly helps the plants remain healthy.

[missmoneypenny]

I think it’s good to withhold water a few days before harvesting. But you couldn’t go the whole hog without watering, surely they’d die. They would here in London, let alone in southern France.

[jambop]

I think it’s good to withhold water a few days before harvesting. But you couldn’t go the whole hog without watering, surely they’d die. They would here in London, let alone in southern France.

You would think so but as with all things people have their ideas and think that the tomatoes taste better for searching for water down into the soil in the same way for example wine growers are not allowed to water their vines... in fact they pride themselves in saying the vines must suffer! Grapes vine roots go down an incredible way to get water.

[missmoneypenny]

I guess one could write a doctorate on the subject, but I remember in the hottest recent summer ( 2018) when it was up to 37C for days, I was away for 2 weeks and they got one watering in that time from a friend. The tomatoes were surprisingly quite bland that year.Maybe it was the excess heat rather than the relative dryness that caused the loss of flavour.