First tomato last night

[Cheezy]

I can't believe how quickly my tomatoes have come on this year, around a month early.

The tommy in question is Sungold a very sweet orange cherry.

It was the first one on the truss, again the truss's are much bigger than I have had before (grew these last year as well)

Got the plant outside against a south facing wall.

[Andy Hamilton]

Nice one, I have been watching mine for weeks growing slowly but steadly. I have tons of green toms but none are ready yet, apart from a tiny one that fell off one of the plants and sat there undescovered until it had turned red.

[Jessica]

Hi i had my first tomatoes yesterday, 3 big beef tomatoes and 2 money maker tomatoes, also have lots and lots of cucumbers, and cougettes, marrows, also coming on is peppers, chilli's, egg plants, and belive it or not my sugar baby melons are getting very big, i have being very busy with work and the garden i have not being near the net at tall.
i have photos i must post them, it a great time to be a gardener.
cheers jessie.

[kevin m.]

Congrats Cheezy!
I got my first Toms off last night-3 'Ildi' yellow mini-plums,and a red 'Tumbling Tom' grown outside in a large pot.
We've got lots of other varieties at the green stage-I thing August is going to be Tomato month!

[Millymollymandy]

RANT ON

Harumph, I've picked 3kg but they all have hard skin and the bloody green collar AGAIN. That's 4 years running and this is the last time I ever try tomatoes because that's €25 of potting compost down the drain. What a waste of time and money.

In fact, I've only ever been truly successful one year out of 9 in France with no tomato disease/problem at all. Who says tomatoes like heat? Grrrrrrrr

RANT OVER

[Shirley]

It's so exciting to hear people harvesting the first of a particular crop.

M3 what a shame... do they taste ok though??

[albert onglebod]

We've had a few off ours in the plastic greenhouse.The leaves are scorched around the edges as its so hot even with the door wide open and fleece draped up the side. We got the seeds from last years Asda toms and some next door gave us so no idea what they are.
The garden toms have loads on but all green.

[Millymollymandy]

It's so exciting to hear people harvesting the first of a particular crop.

M3 what a shame... do they taste ok though??

Green collar (not sure of the English for this but it's the translation of the French) renders them inedible - although the outside of the tomato appears ripe, the inside isn't and is hard and floury.

I did manage to salvage some of the bottom of each tomato and stew it up to freeze to use in place of tinned ones. However from 3kg of toms I got the equivalent of 4 tins of toms = which cost 96 cents in Lidl. Not worth the bother!

[The Chili Monster]

MMM
could it be the pH of the soil rather than the weather?

I've had ten or so tiny red tomatoes. The bush variety I inherited has lots of large green toms.

[Ranter]

Not sure what type I had last year - I swapped 3 french bean seedlings for 3 tomato seedlings. All my friend could tell me about the toms was that they were organic. It was a bush variety, that's all I could tell.

They didn't ripen on the plant at all, when the frosts started I took them off & ripened them in a brown paper bag. After all the hassle I was really looking forward to eating them, but they tasted like cardboard.

So gone back to Tumbler this year as I've been successful with that before.

[Han&Matt]

I am picking our first this evening - been watching it turn for a few days now, a lovely big beef variety which has gone mad and has five extremely heavy trusses with just the biggest beauties - I used comfrey fertilizer this year which I think was the secret, but we also have a sheltered and sunny plot, and I watered almost every day.

The others are a cherry variety and I have 8 plants with four trusses on each. Still green so i am yet to find out if they are orange or red ones (threw away seed packet...).

Not all good though - my broad beasn were devoured in two days by a team of blackfly, and the cabbage white catapillars are getting through the brassicas at an impressive rate. And my squash plant is shedding mini fruit before flowering.

[Andy Hamilton]

I forget who mentioned it on here but I have been telling everyone since I read it as it works. Put jam near the base of your broad beans as the chances are ants are harvesting the black fly. The ants will kill the aphids as they think they will eat there jam. It works very well.

I had the same trouble with squash one year as my soil was terrible. Try feeding them with a liquid feed. Also if they are trailing all over the place the plant will be putting energy into that instead of your fruit. So cut the vines just past the flowers to get the energy back into the plant.

Not sure about cabbage as I have never grown it, not really my favorite food.

[Millymollymandy]

MMM
could it be the pH of the soil rather than the weather?

No, as I'm growing them in pots! I had this problem (called Green Shoulder in English) last year with plum toms grown in the soil, 2 years previously with Moneymaker and another variety grown both in the soil and in pots, and the year before that grown in pots. Nothing salvagable at all those years.

It is supposed to be due to high temperatures and/or fluctuations in temperature or too much sun!!! Where am I supposed to grow them then?!! How do they manage in the Mediterannean countries?

I've not had this problem with cherry tomatoes though, although the skins are often hard making them not very nice uncooked.

[Han&Matt]

Thanks for advice Andy - I wondered if I should stop the squashes as they are escaping our allotment boundary, but it seemed a shame, I really must learn to be more ruthless.

Heard the jam idea too - I haven't seen any ants but you may still be right and they are harvesting the aphids. Worth a go simply for the look on the OH's face when he sees me spreading bramble jam on the beans...

Had first tomato with own basil and lots of pepper last night. Yum.

[Masco&Bongo]

Ours are "Gardeners Delight", bought from B&Q by the people who we've bought the house off. They'd planted about 15 plants, we've got about 7 fruiting and the rest are at various sizes of growth.

We've had about 1kg of tomatoes so far, mostly this week. A couple of plants near the door have scorched leaves, but most seem to be bearing up under the heat!

We're watering every morning and night, and venting the greenhouse during the day

This is the first time I've eaten something I've grown myself, and it's so much better!