At last, our first Tomato. We've been having such bad luck with our Toms in recent years; disease, drought, and disaster have meant we've produced almost nothing.
This year my plants are all in large pots, with Mole-hill soil, Horse manure, and home-made Compost to feed them. Even so the plants have not been perfect. At one point I thought I was going to lose them.
Since then, they've had a good dose of Copper Sulphate (the one chemical allowed with Bio growers), and careful control of their watering.
I can't say my plants are perfect; the fruits are all now forming at the top of very tall, spindly, plants, but this doesn't really worry me as long as the fruits are developing OK.
What a pleasure it is to have one's own Tomatoes again. The one above renewed my faith in home-grown.
They'll taste so much better than shop bought.
ReplyDeleteThey are the one vegetable where there is such a difference between home-grown, and shop bought. No comparison.
DeleteYesterday I took a photo of my first tomatoes too. First and maybe last . Lots of growth but no flowers. I'm grinding up banana skins to put in the soil for extra potassium and adding lime.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure you'll have a bumper crop. You're a bumper gardener.
My squash is doing well thankfully as they do most years. Pepper plants are still very small. Don't know what happened there
My total failure this year are my Aubergines. The plants are the same size now, as when I planted them. Goodness knows what happened.
DeleteSo pleased for you. It has been a long, hard slog over the last few years.
ReplyDeleteIt really has been disappointing over the past few years, but I think I've learnt my lesson now.
DeleteWe will fight them in the air. We will fight them on the beaches but we will never surrender until we have won the tomato war! Congratulations!
ReplyDeleteSince you've brought war into it, see if you can find Garrison Keillor's 'Tomato Butt'. The thing reduces me to tears of laughter every time I listen to it.
DeleteMy daughter in law prunes her tomatoes, snipping away the vertical growth. I'd never heard of it. She read it some place. It is supposed to increase production of what remains. She grows nice tomatoes. I thought I might try it on a couple of plants this year and judge it for myself.
ReplyDeleteI always remove the secondary growths between the stem and the leaves. Is that what she meant?
DeleteI wonder if horse manure is too strong. I guess it depends how much you use.
ReplyDeleteMine comes in dried pellet form (it stinks). So I don't think I used too much.
DeleteIt's a beauty! Enjoy!
ReplyDelete"Only two things money can't buy...true love, and homegrown tomatoes" - Guy Clark
Mr Clark was right. I expect yours are producing loads by now. I think you were about 3 weeks ahead of me.
DeleteOur counter is overflowing at the moment, and I'm considering baking a tomato pie for our supper tonight to use some up! We've given away a few here and there, too. And still plenty yet to come.
DeleteThat looks a lovely tomato. I was watching Yotam Ottolenghi and he was in the Med making a tomato salad and I was thinking how delicious the tomatoes looked compared with some of the tasteless supermarket ones here. I would eat tomatoes all day everyday if they were like yours. XXXX
ReplyDeleteWe do. Thinly sliced with a little vinaigrette, crushed garlic, and salt. Nothing better.
DeleteA lovely looking tomato.just flowers on ours so far..I may have to aid the pollenation with a brush
ReplyDeleteI think that's possibly our problem too. There are plenty of Beehives nearby, but I don't see any Bees on the flowers.
DeleteWe have lots of tomatoes but at the moment they're still green! Can't wait for them to ripen so that we can ditch the supermarket ones.
ReplyDeleteOur next one won't be ripe for another week, at least.
DeleteWhen we lived on the coast, I tried year after year to grow tomatoes. In the ground. In pots. They grow large, lush and beautiful, flower and start to set fruit, and then... disaster always happened. I never knew what I'd done wrong. Someone once told me to bury a copper penny in the soil. Didn't work. I figured it was the salt air.
ReplyDeleteI used to grow huge amounts, then suddenly one year all my plants died. The same happened for about the next 4 years, so I decided to grow them elsewhere in pots. It seems to be working.
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