This year’s challenging weather has thrown another of my
normally reliable crops into chaos, my tomatoes, normally one of my best crops
which start from mid-July and runs (weather permitting) into October. I even in
an attempt to get a really early crop sowed some tomatoes in January and they
were at the fruit bearing stage by May but still didn’t ripen until end of July.
My tomatoes have been that bad this year that I have only had 20ish tomatoes so far I had 4 varieties growing, (check my Feburay posts for the full list or my plan for the allotment)all with the promise of a wonderful bounty but this weather has been rubbish not enough sun to ripen and not consistently warm enough throughout the summer.
I had a bit of success with the Yellow pear shaped cherry tomato it cropped ok-ish but I found them to be “fluffy” in texture rather than crisp like you would expect a tomato so although they had great reviews I didn’t really think much of them and will stick to the good old Gardeners Delight for my cherry toms next year
Tomatoes are the only crop now I don’t grow on my allotment, purely because I don’t have a green house on the plot but next year I am thinking of moving my greenhouse up to the plot giving me more room in the garden and the green house will get better sunlight on the plot as it won’t have a fence blocking out the light.
So what to do with my Green tomatoes?, I will try to
ripen off some but I find they are not as sweet hanging them upside down, I am
not really a fan of Green tomato chutney, but I did see a great recipe for
Green tomato soup, I may give that a bash.
I also know a wonderful recipe for pork cider celery & green tomato hotpot which would be great for the family gathering on bon-fire night.
