Tomato stories

 So everyone has had blight.  Has anyone escaped without?
What varieties did well vs the blight this year?  What performed well and
badly?  And any new and interesting varieties to tell us about?

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)

Both greenhouses got blight before the allotment, although everyone else's
allotment was infected very early on.

As disgusted in another thread, my GD this year were huge!  (for GD,
anyhow).  They are still 'small tomato' size, but in no way could you call
them a cherry.  Oddly, there are some on the same plant that are GD  sized,
but they don't taste like GD, they taste unripe, even when they reach the
right colour.

Incidentally, I noticed the Sweet Millions are also larger than they should
be, they are more like large GD size, where Nick's mum's (which were bought
as plants, not as seed) are teenytiny things.

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!

Anyone else got any tomato news to share?  (apologies in advance, I've just
decided to Nick most of this for my very neglected blog!)

--

 
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!

 vicky@dinky.vm.bytemark.co.uk writes

7 years ago, when we first moved into the house we're in, I grew spuds
in the garden and a lot of toms in pots outside.  The spuds got hit with
blight and immediately afterwards, so did the toms.

Since then, I've grown no spuds in the ground - just in big tubs, and
they've all been fine.

Similarly, nearly all of my toms are grown in the greenhouse.  They have
all been fine too - including this year.  In fact, as I had more than
could fit, I've had one tom outside this year in a pot - and it has been
fine.

Toms have been a mix of GD, Shirley, Hundreds & Thousands and two others
that I can't recall.  One has a dark purpleish fruit with a fairly
translucent skin.  The other is enormous (big beefsteak size) but with
lots of 'folds'.  They look quite ugly, but their flesh is brilliant for
salads.  Can't remember the names of either:(

Sorry for the pain, but its been a fine crop again - we've been eating
them and making tom sauce for the freezer for ages - and there's lots
more to come.  Peppershave been good too - mainly in the greenhouse but
a couple outside in pots.

--
regards   andyw

 <snip>

Just picked another couple of dozen Jersey Sunrise.  They ripen up very
quickly when there's even a little sun but these are indoors and x
fingers, no blight.  We have noticed that they're smaller fruits than
usual this year, though.
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon

 writes

This is a good opportunity to tell you (and the newsgroup) about the
Jersey Sunrise seeds you sent me last year.

I planted them in my mini greenhouse as soon as I thought it suitable
and they germinated very well. I potted them up and they were coming on
very nicely by the end of April, but at the beginning of may we had a
very sharp frost here which did a lot of damage. Half of them survived
but it gave them a check.

However, I was able to plant out 9 and they have come on really well.
They are big sturdy plants and are bearing big trusses of tomatoes of
golf ball size. They are growing in compost-rich soil without any
supplementary feed. Because of the setback and the fact that we are in a
bit of a frost pocket here, they are only just staring to ripen, but I
am confident that we shall have a reasonable crop. If not, there is
always green tomato chutney!

I have posted a couple of photos of two of the plants on my Flickr
account at <http://tinyurl.com/6j8wbjc> . Earlier today I trimmed off
two-thirds of the leaves and shortened those left by a third, otherwise
the fruit would not have been visible.

I am looking forward to tasting these, but they will have to be good to
equal Sungold, which IMO has the best flavour of any tomato. You can
just see one on the right of the first picture.

Question - do you recommend I save some seed from the first one to
ripen, or would it be better if I begged some more from you?

Roy.
--
                                  Roy Bailey
                                West Berkshire.