Cheapest seeds for blight resistant tomatoes

SailorSam

I'm a gardening novice but want to get into it, i've just looked at that wallis seeds site and they sell 'predators'.
Can someone explain what they are all about. what exactly would you get and do with them ? I hope that's not a silly question.

cjb02

SailorSam wrote: »

I'm a gardening novice but want to get into it, i've just looked at that wallis seeds site and they sell 'predators'.
Can someone explain what they are all about. what exactly would you get and do with them ? I hope that's not a silly question.

they are exactly that, predators. you buy live larvae of some type of bug (say ladybird) and release it, in your garden/greenhouse and it kills the bugs you dont want in your garden/greenhouse like green fly for instance.

Ruud

www.wallis-seeds.co.uk/ doesnt seem to be working very well , you have to download a file just to look at what they sell!

master_of_puppets

what dose the blight look like
i have benn having for the past 4-5 years big brown patches turning black on my tomatoes and the leaves go brown and spotty.
also when i pick my toms they split soon after picking them, is that over watering?

Primrose

puppets - if you Google 'photos of tomato blight' I'm sure you'll find various illustrations but basically the stems and leaves develop dark brown patches which spread rapidly.Some good examples here: http://www.hort.cornell.edu/department/Facilities/lihrec/vegpath/photos/lateblight_tomato.htm
If the fruit are also affected they go rotten very quickly. The best thing to do if you spot this happening is remove the fruits, wash them thoroughly and try to let them ripen indoors. Some may got rotten but you might be able to save part of your crop. Splitting tomatoes is usually caused by uneven or inadequate watering.

master_of_puppets

Thanks Primrose, that's what i've got . i looked on a website that says if blight is bad don't grow in that site for 2 years!! but it's in my greenhouse!!!-
i think i'll have to get the more resistant varieties and give the greenhouse a good jeyes fluiding!

MrsBartolozzi

Thanks for the link Primrose, all the pics I could find were of advanced cases and so not what I needed to look out for!
Luckily my planted tomatoes in the greenhouse are fine, but two plants which are "weeds" from home made compost borne seeds in the garden have some blight patches. I have removed the leaves and it's spreading, but not as fast as I thought it might.
I'm not really worried as these plants were freebies, but they've lots of fruit.

Oh is it likely the blight will spread to my french beans, they are right next to the toms?

Primrose

Every year I grow my climbing beans in a border adjacent to my outdoor tomatoes. In the two years where my tomato plants were completely wiped out by blight the beans were totally unaffected as were other vegetables. It's only potatoes which can be cross infected as they're from the same plant family.

point3

I've hesitantly ordered a packet of Ferline for next year too. The most favourable review about the flavour was that it was "Ok, nothing special".

Still find that the cherry tomato varieties are best for flavour and have resisted blight (both indoors and out).

Totem has also been extremely robust, easy to grow and has produced dozens of small/medium sized fruit. No signs of blight. It's the plant that garden centres sell at £5.99 per pot for patio growing. Alan Romans sell the seeds for 50p per packet of 10. It is somewhat lacking in flavour, but perfectly acceptable in a salad.

Primrose

I've picked lots of Ferline over the past couple of weeks and agree that the flavour is OK but not as good as Gardeners Delight but I think growing tomatoes is possibly a case of 'horses for courses'. If you have children and get through a fair quantity of them or want to be extravagant with them for cooking, then Ferline, because their fairly large size, will almost certainly tick the box. If you like lots of tomato salads and enjoy eating them without accompanying flavours then cherry tomatoes are more flavoursome. Compared with some other varieties I've grown in the past such as Moneymaker, Alisa Crag, Alicante I'm almost embarrassed at the huge size of my Ferline crop which I certainly wasn't expecting. I'm running out of freezer space for any more tomato purree, so it looks like we'll be eating lots of fresh home-made tomato soup in the immediate future. Just wish I had access to a a canning machine!