For the first year ever I bought tomato plants from jersy rather than my own seed . I bought 6 plants and ended up with 30 odd plants by planting on the bits I remove from the leaf axels . (Cordon ) They are sweet , a lovely tomato and were ready 10 weeks after planting in pots I have been picking tomatoes from end of June . I shall do the same next year
Granny, the email notifications seem to come in fits and starts.
Suckers, side shoots, same things, different names. There's nothing wrong with letting a couple of them grow. I just wasn't clear how many actual branches you had growing off your main stem.
I find that outdoor tomatoes tend to have tougher skins than greenhouse ones but outdoor ones often taste a bit better than greenhouse ones.
One thing I have learnt this year, from reading advice on this forum, is that I haven't been watering as religiously as in previous years and as a result none of my tomatoes have suffered from split skins, yippppeee!!
NG, Shirley is a hybrid variety. Hybrids are bred to produce the same tomato season after season. More likely that there are cultural factors - temperatures, etc.
Tootles - yes, excessive moisture is one of the major causes of splitting. You see it a lot after periods of intense rain. The extra moisture causes the fruit to swell and the skins can't handle the expansion.
I have been growing tomatoes successfully for about 30 years both in the greenhouse and outdoors, always directly in the ground rather than in pots or grow-bags. I never take much notice of which variety I buy and have always obtained really tasty fruit. Sometimes I buy plants and sometimes I grow from seed.
I recently moved house and now only have a tiny greenhouse frame thing which only has room for a single grow-bag, so this year I planted three garden-centre plants in a grow-bag and another three outside in pots of 50% compost 50% earth. Again I can’t remember the variety, but I have just picked the first fruit and find that they are thick skinned and tasteless.
They have been well fed with Tomorite and watered throughout – grow-bags seem to need watering twice daily in the hot weather.
Before in my previous location it didn't matter what variety I chose - they all tasted great.
Now, in the 3 years since I posted this, all varieties have been thick skinned and tasteless except Sungold which is a miniature orange tomato, so I will stick with that.
Posts
For the first year ever I bought tomato plants from jersy rather than my own seed . I bought 6 plants and ended up with 30 odd plants by planting on the bits I remove from the leaf axels . (Cordon ) They are sweet , a lovely tomato and were ready 10 weeks after planting in pots I have been picking tomatoes from end of June . I shall do the same next year
Which variety were they lucky?
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
Italophile - sorry for delay but I'm also not getting notified of replies to my posts/comments so I need to check this out.
Its the suckers I've allowed to grow??? I've been told they are side shoots???
Granny, the email notifications seem to come in fits and starts.
Suckers, side shoots, same things, different names. There's nothing wrong with letting a couple of them grow. I just wasn't clear how many actual branches you had growing off your main stem.
I find that outdoor tomatoes tend to have tougher skins than greenhouse ones but outdoor ones often taste a bit better than greenhouse ones.
One thing I have learnt this year, from reading advice on this forum, is that I haven't been watering as religiously as in previous years and as a result none of my tomatoes have suffered from split skins, yippppeee!!
NG, Shirley is a hybrid variety. Hybrids are bred to produce the same tomato season after season. More likely that there are cultural factors - temperatures, etc.
Tootles - yes, excessive moisture is one of the major causes of splitting. You see it a lot after periods of intense rain. The extra moisture causes the fruit to swell and the skins can't handle the expansion.
But that's just the point.
Before in my previous location it didn't matter what variety I chose - they all tasted great.
Now, in the 3 years since I posted this, all varieties have been thick skinned and tasteless except Sungold which is a miniature orange tomato, so I will stick with that.