Tomatoes through the season 2024

from a 20 March Sowing

I live in Yorkshire, so that is pretty North. I try to delay sowing for as long a possible but always seem to get leggy plants. I sowed into a heated propagator, then as soon as they’d germinated I moved them straight to a sunny windowsill. It is too cold to put them into an unheated greenhouse and this is what they ended up like, by mid April

I transplanted these out into pots deeply and have moved them to the greenhouse. Burying the stem encourages the stem to generate roots. What you don’t want is a weak stem which prevents nutrient uptake to the growing tomatoes.

Transplanting

Now they have been transplanted into individual pots I have covered these with cloches to protect them from dropping temperatures overnight. I have found in the past that if they get too cold as that checks the growth, makes them weak and susceptible to disease.

I was supposed to be being more moderate this year but have ended up sowing 6 varieties: Oxheart, Tigerella, Quadro, Berner Rose, Latah and Moskvich, The latter two I have never grown before but these are supposed to be early and cold tolerant.

I intend to steam-can more tomatoes this year, for storage, if I get a good crop so have been ambitious in the number I am growing. I am going to plant these, in their final positions, into three different greenhouses and have prepared the sites for them. As always, as growers, we have to remain hopeful and spread our luck!

It is May and I have planted out most of the tomatoes now across the three greenhouses, I will follow their progress at each location

Home Greenhouse, varieties: Oxheart and Berner Rose

I have enriched a bag of shop bought compost with home made compost and covered this with partially rotted leaf mould, into which I have planted six Oxheart tomatoes and a couple of Berner Rose. The former are my favourite, they produce large flavoursome tomatoes which cook really well, the latter is a beautiful tomato but has given me problems with grey mould. I am not sure whether the bought seed carried this, or if previous damp conditions fostered it, I feel like I should probably not grow this batch any more but somehow thought it was worth the risk because it is such a tasty tomato. I change the soil in this bed every year but always get a touch of mould returning. This is what they look like now:

The Oxheart tomatoes, planted into watering collars with Napia peppers in the foreground. The roots will go under the pots and capture any nutrients that run through.

June 24, not doing well!

Oxheart are doing really badly, these were initially the most vigorous plants and were planted out first. They are growing in Jack’s Magic, essentially they are dying, they have not grown at all.

I have taken some side shoots off from the tomato plants at the allotment that are growing strongly to root on. I have heard before that these side shoots crop earlier that the parent plant so am going to see if this is true. These will replace the plants that have failed at home.

Considering the setback these plants had they have recovered really well, these are the Oxheart heritage variety.

Even the side shoots that I grew on have borne fruit, so not as big a disaster as anticipated and shows that you can recover even after a big setback!

I have planted a selection of tomatoes in the allotment greenhouse. Like the one at home, this greenhouse has a solid base so I have built a frame. This has had added, shop bought compost, some manure and pelleted calcified seaweed. I like to enrich the soil so that they need less feeding through the growing season. This is the plants prior to planting:

July, they are starting to take off

New Greenhouse, variety Latah

The new greenhouse was built straight onto soil, I am interested to see how they grow in improved soil instead of enriched compost. I have built some raised beds inside and planted Latah tomatoes, which are super early, and resilient, tolerant of rubbish summers, so a good trial. They also don’t need any pruning, which is a departure for me.

Soil preparation and planting, 10 May 24

I have dug in some well rotted manure, added calcified seaweed and a bit of old compost. The soil wasn’t easy to prepare, it seems to be heavier in this spot and has some nasty weed roots, so I will have to keep any recurrence in check. I have covered the soil with newspaper and cheap Lidl’s compost which is great as a mulch, but rubbish for growing into. There are five Latah and three more Quadros in this location. Tomatoes seem to love mulch, as they produce alot of surface roots and prefer constantly damp, rather than wet soil. It prevents evaporation which is useful in the hotter conditions of a greenhouse.

June 24, Latah tomatoes are doing really well despite the awful cold weather, they are just starting to flower. I have added in a couple of Tigerella plants where I had some gaps. The netting was put around the plants when it was briefly hot and sunny, this greenhouse has no natural shade at all.

July, the Latah are a crazy mess but they are growing really well and have lots of tomatoes forming

5 Aug 24, starting to get Latah tomatoes every day, they aren’t large but there are plenty of them, they aren’t easy to get to though, they are sprawled right across the path.

Not sure I would grow so many Latah next year, as they are very small fruit, and I prefer to can the crop to preserve them and they are a lot of work to peel. But definitely worth growing for the earliness and productivity.