Year round tomatoes (continued)

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Odsox
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Year round tomatoes (continued)

Post: # 157352Post Odsox »

I'm still on my quest for fresh home grown tomatoes all year round, and I think I may have bridged the gap between the storage tomatoes and the micro-toms of my earlier postings, and the regular outdoor/greenhouse ones.
I sowed one seed of Totem back in January and two more in March.
They were all grown indoors on a south facing windowsill and the January sown one started producing ripe toms in mid-May, while the other two started ripening the first week in June. They are "normal" sized fruits and what's more they taste just like home grown tomatoes should with a nice acid tang. What I like about them is they are so easy to grow indoors, they don't go leggy and they don't even lean towards the light, and as they are a bush variety they don't need the side shoots taken out.
They are all now ripening like mad and we are picking about half a dozen every other day, but there are also more flowers being produced so should continue to fruit for some while yet. As a comparison the greenhouse grown ones have fruit the size of grapes at the moment.
Toms.jpg
Toms.jpg (107.96 KiB) Viewed 2114 times
This is one of the March sown ones in a 2 litre pot and is about 16 inches tall.
Tony

Disclaimer: I almost certainly haven't a clue what I'm talking about.

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Annpan
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Re: Year round tomatoes (continued)

Post: # 157418Post Annpan »

So, did you have another tip to get fresh toms in Autumn/winter? Mine are also on the toatie side in the PT :( Should we plant some now for a later drop? but then they wouldn't get enough sunlight? would they?
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Re: Year round tomatoes (continued)

Post: # 157419Post Green Aura »

I picked the first (and only) ripe Microtom yesterday. They really are micro aren't they :lol:

I have to say I wasn't overly impressed with the taste, but we'll see when a few more are ripe.

The polytunnel toms are really slow this year, they've all got a couple of trusses, but not much sign of tomatoes. Am I being too eager?
Maggie

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Millymollymandy
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Re: Year round tomatoes (continued)

Post: # 157466Post Millymollymandy »

Wow Odsox that is amazing - not just for the time of year but more because they are growing indoors and not remotely leggy! :shock: :shock: :shock: Are you pollinating them with a paintbrush?
boboff wrote:Oh and just for MMM, :hugish: (thanks)
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Odsox
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Re: Year round tomatoes (continued)

Post: # 157486Post Odsox »

Millymollymandy wrote:Are you pollinating them with a paintbrush?
No, just left to their own devices .. although I do give the pot a thump every now and then.

Ann, winter ones in this scheme are storage tomatoes that keep until February or so, the trick then is to produce fresh fruit from March to July.

I'm just starting a new idea with tomatoes that I came across on the web that some commercial growers are trying, and that is restricting ordinary cordon plants to just one truss. The idea is that you get early crops of larger tastier fruit because all the plants energy is concentrated on that one truss, plus you can get many more plants per square metre.
I'm germinating half a dozen seeds of Subarctic Plenty that I intend to plant in an ordinary trough and see what happens.
If it works it may be an idea for early crops on a windowsill too. I'll report back .........
Tony

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