SCs inability with tomatoes

You do grow some incredible tomatoes TMTT. I really wish I had your talent. I’m not to bad at chilli growing. Everything else I’m average, but tomatoes I’m absolutely dreadful at growing them. I’ll keep trying because I like them a lot.

You do grow some incredible tomatoes TMTT. I really wish I had your talent. I’m not to bad at chilli growing. Everything else I’m average, but tomatoes I’m absolutely dreadful at growing them. I’ll keep trying because I like them a lot.

I give more credit to the breeders. The time and effort they put in to breeding these varieties is incredible and requires a lot of passion for tomatoes!

It's been a terrible year for tomatoes in the greenhouse for me with a harvest of just over 11kg compared to last year's 33kg and 24kg in 2022. I am getting a bit frustrated with heirloom/open-pollinated varieties as while I love growing them for their taste, diversity and interest, they can be very unreliable year to year. On top of that my two main sources for interesting tomato seeds are no longer available for various reasons.

If I could grow a lot more tomato plants I wouldn't be bothered in some of them were a bit stingy in terms of yield, but since I can only get 8 plants in the greenhouse I need much better performance. Next year I am probably going to be growing a lot more hybrid varieties since they more reliably set fruit in heat and have more vigour and better disease resistance. Yes the seed is more expensive and you have to buy it regularly, but if I can get reliable yields year after year then 10-15p per plant isn't much to moan about. Plus I think some of the newer hybrids have really good flavour and the fruit last much longer off the plant.

What problems do you have with tomato growing?

I just never seem to have the yield from them that other people get. No matter what variety. I think I do everything right (obviously missing something). They’re planted in raised beds or very large pots (depending on variety) I try to give them space, I give the support, feed weekly after first flowers, I pinch out armpits. I talk nicely to them! But still a pitiful production. It might be the varieties I’m choosing, but they can’t all be under achievers, can they. I choose them in a very scientific manner…………..by the names     . 
For example Black Russian. Love that tom. But I get about 4 ripe and a few under sized green. Everyone else has ladened trusses. Same with buffalo horn, love that one too.

I've stopped worrying about yield - all I care about is that I have enough to eat each day. This year I've grown less plants and they're all new to me. I haven't armpitted any, just let them grow as they wish, and they've been fine. They were late starting production, but I put that down to the weird weather we had earlier this year - now there's more than enough for me (and the neighbours).

I just never seem to have the yield from them that other people get. No matter what variety. I think I do everything right (obviously missing something). They’re planted in raised beds or very large pots (depending on variety) I try to give them space, I give the support, feed weekly after first flowers, I pinch out armpits. I talk nicely to them! But still a pitiful production. It might be the varieties I’m choosing, but they can’t all be under achievers, can they. I choose them in a very scientific manner…………..by the names     . 
For example Black Russian. Love that tom. But I get about 4 ripe and a few under sized green. Everyone else has ladened trusses. Same with buffalo horn, love that one too.

My Buffalo Horn (seeds originally from you) this year is incredibly prolific but unfortunately many of the gh toms have once again suffered greenback, fluctuations in temperature probably the cause.

I just never seem to have the yield from them that other people get. No matter what variety. I think I do everything right (obviously missing something). They’re planted in raised beds or very large pots (depending on variety) I try to give them space, I give the support, feed weekly after first flowers, I pinch out armpits. I talk nicely to them! But still a pitiful production. It might be the varieties I’m choosing, but they can’t all be under achievers, can they. I choose them in a very scientific manner…………..by the names     . 
For example Black Russian. Love that tom. But I get about 4 ripe and a few under sized green. Everyone else has ladened trusses. Same with buffalo horn, love that one too.

Varieties could be the issue. I find dark tomatoes like Black Russian need a hot summer to perform well, they don't really like overcast weather. Up there you must get less sunshine hours than further South so you probably need earlier varieties. If you're not getting many fruit it could also mean the flowers are not being pollinated, which could be due to high temperatures, low humidity or lack of airflow/bees. Tickling trusses can definitely improve fruit set indoors. I'm probably going to get some shade netting for the greenhouse next year as whenever we have a heatwave the greenhouse gets boiling hot and tomatoes just don't pollinate properly in that kind of heat.

The main tomato I use for cooking is Alicante. It performs really well every year, doesn't suffer from greenback and is easy to skin. This year I've had a bad dose of tomato leaf mould or the yield would have been exceptional. I do have 33 plants in total, 22 grafted. From 9 alicante plants I've had 21kg so far. 2 Roma plum tomatoes still have lots of fruit to come and so far I've had 4.9kg off them.gardeners delight 8.8kg off 4 plants and 6.6kg from 3 galina. A lot of the plants will be dead before the end of September and a few could be pulled up now. My grandson loves the gardeners delight and galina.
I grew black russian once but wasn't impressed.

Results from 2021 Columns a bit jumbled but 'kg.' column is the total of all plants. g.d. is gardeners delight. Probably they were all grafted.
   

The total at end of August in 2021 was 39kg while the total currently this year is 62kg but there is no way I'll end up anywhere near 109kg this year with the state they are in.

If you like sweet cherry tomatoes and don't mind f1 varieties, then Honeycomb is a winner for me. Sungold is my go to every year just for snacking in the gh and our usual lunches but Honeycomb surpasses it. I also grew some Sungold from saved seed which came true enough for my tastes.

I just never seem to have the yield from them that other people get. No matter what variety. I think I do everything right (obviously missing something). They’re planted in raised beds or very large pots (depending on variety) I try to give them space, I give the support, feed weekly after first flowers, I pinch out armpits. I talk nicely to them! But still a pitiful production. It might be the varieties I’m choosing, but they can’t all be under achievers, can they. I choose them in a very scientific manner…………..by the names     . 
For example Black Russian. Love that tom. But I get about 4 ripe and a few under sized green. Everyone else has ladened trusses. Same with buffalo horn, love that one too.

Varieties could be the issue. I find dark tomatoes like Black Russian need a hot summer to perform well, they don't really like overcast weather. Up there you must get less sunshine hours than further South so you probably need earlier varieties. If you're not getting many fruit it could also mean the flowers are not being pollinated, which could be due to high temperatures, low humidity or lack of airflow/bees. Tickling trusses can definitely improve fruit set indoors. I'm probably going to get some shade netting for the greenhouse next year as whenever we have a heatwave the greenhouse gets boiling hot and tomatoes just don't pollinate properly in that kind of heat.

It might be pollination. I thought tomatoes were self pollinating? Which is why they don’t cross (except potato leaves) maybe something to do with it. Having said that this year I’m only growing ramblings red stripe (thank you veggie). Very healthy looking plants. One in a bucket in blow away, one in a hanging basket. A good number of fruit. Not a single sign of ripening anywhere. I’ve not had one home grown tomato yet. Infuriating! Especially as they look lovely even green.

Just moved our chat about improving my tomato growing abilities as the tomato gallery wasn’t the place for my incompetence     .

Thank you everyone for your help so far   .