comparing tom varieties - quality, taste and yield

mardatha

Ahh you have to keep an eye on tomatoes. They tend to party a lot when you're not looking

rhiwfield

Melonade wrote: »

Sorry to sound clueless but what does pinch out mean? My tomato plants are about 5ft now and have loads of flowers and loads of green tomato's. They are quite bunched together and I'm going to make more room for them this weekend. They are kept outside in pots and tied to stakes and are Gardener's Delight. I was just letting them do their thing

Melonade, you remove the growing tip of the shoot by pinching it with your fingernails (or cut it with a knife), if its the shoot growing from a leaf axil then you nip that out at the base when its about an inch long

foreign_correspondent

Lotus-eater wrote: »

I don't understand this, how can you let it do it's own thing if you take out the sideshoots? What else is there to let it do?

Well, some people do all sorts of strange things to their toms - take off lower leaves, stop them when they reach a certain height by by pinching out the top, remove any trusses above a certain amount - in comparison I am pretty laissez faire when it comes to toms - all I do is sideshoot, tie in, water and feed.

atticgirl2003 wrote: »

I can now confirm what I bought as tomato plants, one of them is indeed a courgette.
Looks like I am going to have plenty of courgettes.
Just sorry this plant is keeping the sun off my tomato plants.

well, it could be a bonus, a bit of variety is nice - can you move things round so it doesnt shade your tomato plants too much - some courgettes can be pretty vigorous growers?

lightisfading

foreign_correspondent wrote: »

Well, some people do all sorts of strange things to their toms - take off lower leaves, stop them when they reach a certain height by by pinching out the top, remove any trusses above a certain amount - in comparison I am pretty laissez faire when it comes to toms - all I do is sideshoot, tie in, water and feed.

Compared to me you are positively obsessed with your tom plants I tied mine in a couple of months ago when i put them out but they need doing again. I took out one or two sideshoots but not the rest, and I've fed them for the first time today :rotfl:

furndire

I am trying to work out which tomato plants are which. I have noticed that one type has the leaves off the main stem opposite each other, rather than stepped - they can be one of three types - Alicante, Tigerella, or San Marzano 2. I've sussed out the Marmande and Gardeners Delight


Just found out its The SAn Marzano 2 - googled image. Hopefully it won't be long before I work out the tigerella one (stripey toms).

Lotus-eater

foreign_correspondent wrote: »

Well, some people do all sorts of strange things to their toms - take off lower leaves, stop them when they reach a certain height by by pinching out the top, remove any trusses above a certain amount - in comparison I am pretty laissez faire when it comes to toms - all I do is sideshoot, tie in, water and feed.

Oh righty ho, got you now.
I hardly even bother feeding mine, but I do stop them when they get to the top of the greenhouse, or about 5 trusses, it helps ripen the fruit.

Megansmum

Well, today AT LAST :j i have found some tiny tomatoes on 3 of my plants! I was getting ready to give up on them! Mine were grown at the same time as my father in laws - from the same stock too - and his have shedloads of toms on them! I wonder why mine took so much longer to start doing anything??

Oh well, i'm glad they've started now - it's my first year and i was getting a bit sad looking at tom plants with no toms!!:o

Mardatha - i wonder if yours were late growers too?

mardatha

My bush tomatoes are showing plenty green tomatoes, but the tall plants are poor.

foreign_correspondent

mardatha wrote: »

My bush tomatoes are showing plenty green tomatoes, but the tall plants are poor.

what varieties are they mardatha?

congrats on the little toms megansmum!!

mardatha

God knows. Lost all the wee stickers ! Ask Mrs Mac, she gave me the seed !