Growing tomatoes

Paspatur

Woolsery said:

The point I was making, obviously badly, is that with anything highly variable and home-grown, the cost of the raw material is only one aspect of success.

Does raw material include my very expensive (to me) greenhouse? I will never recoup it in my lifetime over tomatoes and other plants but boy have I had some fun. On my birthday this year it hit 36 degrees, outside hit 8 degrees. I have room for a chair, will be cheaper than heating the house next year

Rosa_Damascena

Paspatur said:

Woolsery said:

The point I was making, obviously badly, is that with anything highly variable and home-grown, the cost of the raw material is only one aspect of success.

Does raw material include my very expensive (to me) greenhouse? I will never recoup it in my lifetime over tomatoes and other plants but boy have I had some fun. On my birthday this year it hit 36 degrees, outside hit 8 degrees. I have room for a chair, will be cheaper than heating the house next year

I miss my conservatory for the same reason! But on a dull day like today it would have been freezing.

Paspatur

Same here, greenhouse currently 4 degrees, outside temp 6 degrees but with wind chill 2 degrees but come March the difference will hopefully be huge again

Woolsery

Paspatur said:

Woolsery said:

Rosa_Damascena said:

Tomatoes are very important to you 

Sorry, that's entirely lost on me, but maybe there's a deeper meaning I'm not getting?

The point I was making, obviously badly, is that with anything highly variable and home-grown, the cost of the raw material is only one aspect of success.

Woolsery, did you click it? It is a link to a Friends episode about tomatoes. Must admit I didn't watch it as not interested in junk tv

Yes, but I'm the' wrong demographic' too, I fear!

Woolsery

Paspatur said:

Woolsery said:

The point I was making, obviously badly, is that with anything highly variable and home-grown, the cost of the raw material is only one aspect of success.

Does raw material include my very expensive (to me) greenhouse? I will never recoup it in my lifetime over tomatoes and other plants but boy have I had some fun. On my birthday this year it hit 36 degrees, outside hit 8 degrees. I have room for a chair, will be cheaper than heating the house next year

I'd say my 96m2 polytunnel paid for itself in the 11 years before storm Eunice took the roof away. I sold a lot of plants/produce at the gate, though. But I don't fool myself; if I'd stacked shelves, I could have made far more money; just not in such a pleasurable way.

The re-build is about 60m2 and cost under £1k, which isn't bad if it pays back in produce and amusement over another 10 years or so.

JIL

Can I ask about tomatoes please? I absolutely love the tomatoes that you can buy in Spain, they dont look much but are so tasty. Is it possible to bring some seeds home and grow my own or is it perhaps the climate that is the difference.

RobM99

JIL said:

Can I ask about tomatoes please? I absolutely love the tomatoes that you can buy in Spain, they dont look much but are so tasty. Is it possible to bring some seeds home and grow my own or is it perhaps the climate that is the difference.

Might be the variety.  http://myvegpatch.co.uk/tomatoes-a-z/  Enough here to choose from!

-taff

JIL said:

Can I ask about tomatoes please? I absolutely love the tomatoes that you can buy in Spain, they dont look much but are so tasty. Is it possible to bring some seeds home and grow my own or is it perhaps the climate that is the difference.

It is definitely possible, also feeding them and keeping them damp [not wet]  is half the battle for taste along with sun obviously. If your tomatoes are F1 hybrids, they will more likely not breed true, but heirloom varieties will, which means you can save the seed, grow the same tomato. [With F!s, you can save the seed, grow totally different tomatoes because they are a hybrid of varieties.] To be honest, home grown more often than not taste much much better than supermarket toms here, because we don't care about eating red water, whereas abraod, they like food and they like it tasting nice, so they do get different tomato varieties that are grown as they should be and not picked well before ripeness.

RobM99

Crikey - I've started something here! 

Woolsery

JIL said:

Can I ask about tomatoes please? I absolutely love the tomatoes that you can buy in Spain, they dont look much but are so tasty. Is it possible to bring some seeds home and grow my own or is it perhaps the climate that is the difference.

You can probably get somewhere close to a Spanish climate with a greenhouse or polytunnel in a good summer like '22, so bringing a few seeds back (squash onto kitchen paper & sow paper later) may work. However, as taff says, well-tended, well-fed toms of a variety you like will surely taste fine if they're suited to average British weather.

It is possible to sow F1 varieties' collected seed and get close to 'the real thing,' but obviously, the more one does it, year-on-year, the greater the chance of noticeable deviation. Half a dozen true seeds at 20p each is still a bargain when the productivity/taste is considered.