Tomatoes in cool UK conditions

LessImpecunious

Sounds fab! - sadly ours is small, dark and cool, good in a hot summer, but not ideal for tomatoes!

twopenny

Ha!Ha! When I was looking at houses I complained about an outside conservatory as useless and a friend said 'but you always wanted a greenhouse'..........other thinking  

Is there a way you could use sheets of polystyrene like a low wall around the base to increase the temperature somewhat?

Or foil as a light and heat reflector?

I did this with my large cold frame for a couple of years where the weather wasn't ideal

LessImpecunious

twopenny said:

Is there a way you could use sheets of polystyrene like a low wall around the base to increase the temperature somewhat?

Or foil as a light and heat reflector?

I did this with my large cold frame for a couple of years where the weather wasn't ideal

Thanks! one other suggestion I've had is putting a large tank of water (ideally black - e.g., old water cistern, of which I have several!) in the greenhouse, which acts as a thermal store overnight - might try this as I have a potting table in there that I could fit one under!

Woolsery

LessImpecunious said:

twopenny said:

Is there a way you could use sheets of polystyrene like a low wall around the base to increase the temperature somewhat?

Or foil as a light and heat reflector?

I did this with my large cold frame for a couple of years where the weather wasn't ideal

Thanks! one other suggestion I've had is putting a large tank of water (ideally black - e.g., old water cistern, of which I have several!) in the greenhouse, which acts as a thermal store overnight - might try this as I have a potting table in there that I could fit one under!

I was once friends with quite a well known gardener, now deceased, who took the water storage concept a stage further and had fish in the the deep ponds under his benches. Rudd are partly surface feeders and mopped up flies and bugs for him!

Effician

The rear of our 15' x 10' polytunnel has become a log store for next winter as the other log stores are full, whilst i'm not 100% sure it seems as though the 4cubic meter of tightly stacked logs does appear to keep the night time temps slightly elevated, ie last night our local forcast was for a minimum of 2c but the poly temp didn't drop below 6c.

greensalad

There are lots of Scottish varieties. Ailsa Craig has worked well for me outside (granted I'm South so it's warm) and also a lot of Eastern European varities can be good in colder weather (e.g Purple Ukraine)

fatbelly

Some varieties that might work if you can find them:

Ailsa Craig : Early Scottish-raised all-rounder.
Beaverlodge: Highly productive Canadian-bred variety.
Glacier: Potato-leaved, very early low-growing salad type that is particularly tolerant of cooler temperatures.
Latah: Very early, flavoursome fruits which are variable in size and sometimes ribbed.
Moneymaker: A tried-and-tested salad tomato that is, as the name suggests, reliably prolific.
Red Alert: Early-fruiting cherry tomatoes, said to be very flavourful.
Shirley F1: Good disease resistance and high yields of medium-large fruits.
Siberian: Low-growing salad tomato that sets fruit at low temperatures.
Stupice: Another early potato-leaved variety, this time bred in the former Czechoslovakia.
Sub-Arctic Plenty: Very early tomato that will set fruit in cool conditions.

LessImpecunious

Thanks

fatbelly 

and everyone else for all the suggestions - lots of ideas for next year!

LessImpecunious

Update Aug 2024 - having my best-ever tomato growing year, thanks in part to all your advice - should have posted here, but hope I can cross-post to pic on another thread https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6197328/awful-weather-typical-brits-talk/p1033

-taff

I didn't see this but black tomatoes from eastern europe would be good because they're grown for a short hot summer, which translates here as short summer so more chance of ripening early. Theyre tough old boots the plants too considering they're from south america originally. I've sown at the beginning of march and left them to grow on in the greenhouse before either in plastic bags or with those silly plastic covers even with frosts, they've gone purple underneath with the cold but they grow on well when it warms up.