Earlist toms.

wallbash

Have an unheated green house
What is the best tomato to grow for the earliest crop, fed up with all toms
being ready in September.
Will grow Gardner's delight for taste.

And when do I sow ... will be again in unheated green house.
( or should I look for established plants on sale)

Thanks

RHYSDAD

wallbash wrote: »

Have an unheated green house
What is the best tomato to grow for the earliest crop, fed up with all toms
being ready in September.
Will grow Gardner's delight for taste.

And when do I sow ... will be again in unheated green house.
( or should I look for established plants on sale)

Thanks

If it's taste you're after...... I prefer Ailsa Craig and Sungold F1. Personally i would sow seeds indoors in pots and cover with cling film to aid propagation and then it's a matter of waiting...earlier tomatoes will be there with better weather.

Ailsa Craig crops in 68 days

Sungold F1 crops in 60 days

Which means you could be eating lovely tasty toms around mid April if you sowed seeds today (although personally i wouldn't sow toms yet for another month or so so make that mid May, or in the real world, June)

What variety were you growing before and when were you planting out?

wallbash

Tried Sungold , but have always bought established plants , late April.

RHYSDAD

wallbash wrote: »

Tried Sungold , but have always bought established plants , late April.

:think: Well you asked re sowing and then tell me you bought established plants........

Have you tried sowing? Have you tried Ailsa Craig? How many fruits did your 'sungolds' produce?

wallbash

I bought plants last year , was asking about sowing this year!

With a bought plant , my sungold cropped well but late in the summer .
Never tried Ailsa Craig.
Will have to dig out the info, but nothing I grow tasted anywhere as good as G.D.

jollyanna

I grew an early variety "Red Alert" last year but wouldn't grow them again. They're an outdoor variety but I grew some in the greenhouse and some outside. Both matured at the same time (very end of July) though the outside plants were much more sturdy. They were quite small, the skins were uniformly tough and the flavour was disappointing.

conradmum

The earlier you sow the earlier you'll get a crop, but you need to be able to keep them with plenty of light and not too cold (not below 10 degrees C ). Is your greenhouse in an unshaded position? I'm surprised you got nothing until September. Maybe the plants you bought were sown late.

The difficulty with sowing anything early in Britain is that the seedlings get leggy as they seek out the light. You can mitigate this effect to an extent by burying the seedlings nearly up to the leaves when you pot on. You can also do this with chillis, peppers, aubergines and melons. Not sure if I've tried it with anything else. It doesn't harm the plant and in fact is beneficial because they develop really good root systems. You just need tall pots!

Sally_A

My earliest tomato was at the end of May last year (sown 20th Jan), it was a Gardeners Delight, and kept in the porch on the south side of our house. Regular deleafing (about 2/3rds of leaves removed), and robust sideshooting helped I think. Not as plentiful as the maincrop, so might try to do 3 this year to keep me just ticking over until the greenhouse tomatoes come into their own.

Normally my main tomatoes (sown 14/2) will go in the unheated greenhouse in their final position on the first May bank holiday, and I would be expecting to pick towards mid - end of July. I've found the Gardeners Delight are one of the first to be ready; again I remove a fair few leaves, to aid ventilation.

Regular potting on gives tomatoes an excellent head start, and results in thick stemmed plants.