Tomato Progress Report

By Mwillis
Despite the bad news I reported yesterday - the weedkiller contamination problem - I think I may get a decent tomato crop this year.


"Ferline"


Most of the plants are absolutely laden with flowers.

"Giant Delicious"


And of course, flowers lead to fruits (as long as pollination takes place). Thank you, bees!


"Ferline"


These ones are "Possena del Vesuvio", grown from seeds sent to me by Enrico, in Italy. you can see that they are going to be plum-shaped ones.


"Possena del Vesuvio"


These are "Larisa", grown from seeds sent to me by Facebook friend Eddy, in Belgium.

"Larisa"


My favorite cherry tomato these days is "Maskotka" - a very vigorous and unruly plant. It does well grown as a bush in big containers, where it produces a veritable jungle of growth.


"Maskotka"


Here is a close-up of the rapidly-swelling Maskotka fruits. They usually get quite big - bigger than most cherry tomato types, but smaller than the "regular" types.

"Maskotka"


In the hot weather we had last week, the tomatoes grew rapidly. I had to tie them in to their canes twice within a week! I normally tie the stems every 6 or 8 inches, to keep them straight. Watering has been made a lot easier since I got the "self-watering" pots with the reservoirs in their bases. I only need to water the tomatoes about once a week, which is convenient because that fits in nicely with the feeding regime. I feed my tomatoes once a week, using a proprietary food called "Tomorite", which has the best NPK balance for this type of fruit.
Many of my tomatoes this year are large "Beefsteak" varieties. I am planning to be very disciplined and to stop the plants when they have produced a maximum of 5 trusses (maybe only four for the biggest ones). I will also thin out the fruit to leave only 3 or 4 fruit per truss. This means I will hopefully get fewer, but bigger and better fruits. In my garden, quality comes before quantity!