Tomatoes. What next?

CFC

Rats! I know my seedlings are roma tomatoes of some kind, but I've thrown away the packet - will they be bush tomatoes or might they be cordon??

Lotus-eater

mrbadexample wrote: »

This is one of my Gardener's Delight:

You might be able to tell I'm quite pleased with how it looks; nice and stocky. Flowers still not open though.

You will have by now of course have pinched out those large side shoots I presume? Because it's evergy will have gone into those and not into growing flowers.

Lotus-eater

CFC wrote: »

Rats! I know my seedlings are roma tomatoes of some kind, but I've thrown away the packet - will they be bush tomatoes or might they be cordon??

I think most of the seeds sold are Roma VF, which according to various sources are determinate, or semi determinate.
I've read that they are better when grown as a bush, just letting them go. I've not tried that, trying to cordon mine to a certain extent, because I didn't realise how bushy they got and didn't really suit my greenhouse where they were. It worked a bit, but they are messy plants to cordon and don't get very high.

Emma_whitnash

mrbadexample wrote: »

This is one of my Gardener's Delight:



You might be able to tell I'm quite pleased with how it looks; nice and stocky. Flowers still not open though.

Wow, mine are no where near that big. They are doing well, have been outside this week (having been in greenhouse). Got plenty of rain on Monday and sunshine since, I've not fed them enough but they seem happy at the moment. I didn't get one tom last year (bad year) so am hoping for better success this time!

[Deleted User]

I have had to lift the pop up greenhouse away from the gardeners delight and sungold as they are almost at the top. All have 4 trusses now and quite a few fruits on the lowest truss. I left alicante in a pop up as it seems to be much shorter. This is something I am going to get right next year ie the height between trusses, sungold has a longish stem between trusses and reached the top very quickly

alaskan fancy were supposed to be quick but the flowers are slow to open, so I am not impressed. Principe borghese is doing fine and I put the 2 pop ups over some of those as I want a lot of these little tomatoes for dehydrating

Taking a few bottom leaves off has worked wonders in uncurling the top leaves. I have several different methods going on at the moment. So far so good but I`ll be changing a couple of my varieties next year

mrbadexample

Lotus-eater wrote: »

You will have by now of course have pinched out those large side shoots I presume? Because it's evergy will have gone into those and not into growing flowers.

Ahh...they're not that large.

I'll do it in a minute.

[Deleted User]

I just had a wander around the tomatoes and have had to take off a fair few axils again. The ones on sungold are very easy and also gardeners delight but alicante and principe were tricky as the leaves are huddled together. I am very surprised at the good number of formed tomatoes as it seems very early but I suppose we have had a strange start this year and now the med temperatures. I have had to stop my outdoor tomatoes already, I am amazed.

Watering is fairly tricky but the growpots help, anyway I am watering once a day at the moment and am ready to increase to twice a day and I`ll have to remember to feed regularly too. At this rate sungold, at least, will be vacating its growbags well before autumn so I think I`ll be getting endive, or some such, sown in trays soon

Hippeechiq

Hi everyone

This is also my first year of growing tomatoes (or anything for that matter) and having read information until it's coming out of my ears, I am still no further forward in knowing when to start feeding my plants

I've read more information supporting than not, the theory that they should not be fed until the first truss has fully set, but on my Sweet & Neat tomato plants in particular, I have lots of baby toms (the size of say a petit pois) all over the plants, but not one complete set truss, but part of me thinks I should be feeding the tomatoes that are already starting to form.

What do you all recommend/have the most success with?

Hippeechiq

Also - I'm growing them in a walk in 6' x 4' x 6' pu greenhouse erected on paving slabs, in containers, and would, ideally, prefer to continue to do so (if you had neighbours like mine, you'd understand why)

The only ventilation is a door at the front, and yesterday, with the door open, despite misting and pouring water on the floor, it reached almost 40c inside. The Shirley tomato plants in particular were not happy by the end of the day, although have recovered.

Today is a similar temperature so I've moved all of them into the garden, including my aubergine, chilli and sweet pepper plants, as I've read that they all - apart from the aubergine plant - dislike temperatures above 25c and that pepper plants wont produce and set flowers at temperatures above 30c.

Is that correct?

I've covered and tethered the roof of the greenhouse with a dust sheet today, but other than that, don't know what else I can do to reduce the inside temperature, and I really don't want to have to do my growing outside.

Lotus-eater

Hippeechiq wrote: »

Hi everyone

This is also my first year of growing tomatoes (or anything for that matter) and having read information until it's coming out of my ears, I am still no further forward in knowing when to start feeding my plants

I've read more information supporting than not, the theory that they should not be fed until the first truss has fully set, but on my Sweet & Neat tomato plants in particular, I have lots of baby toms (the size of say a petit pois) all over the plants, but not one complete set truss, but part of me thinks I should be feeding the tomatoes that are already starting to form.

I work to the theory that if you have one set tomato, you can start feeding.