Tomato Growing 2025

I agree with Pete I think with the heat, the outdoor tomatoes are performing as well if not better than the greenhouse ones. The only difference will be, if blight strikes, the greenhouse ones will not succumb so quickly.

 

Chocolate Drop. Bought as a dark cherry but turned out to be a rather striking orange. I'll forgive it because it's tasty.

 

Not that I perfected my skills of growing tomatoes... still learning. I managed to prepare soil well in the greenhouse and beds outdoors, but still had problems with flowers drop not setting fruit.

 

Classic example of blossom end rot which is symptomatic of calcium deficiency. Metallic trace elements can be mutually inhibiting in uptake to tomatoes if out of balance. Do you know what the rock dust was derived from; often its basalt which comprises of minerals from volcanic activity ,and which by definition, is infinitely variable.
Some advice can be found here :
Tomato Fertilizers & Crop Guide: Nutrition of Tomato Crops | Haifa Group

 

Oh I know the cause, in fact it's rarely a lack of calcium, it's just not available to the plants at the right time. Classically it's due to lack of or erratic watering , but not in this case as with the Quadgrow pots there's always water available. The bottom trusses are OK, the weather wasn't so hot when they formed. It's the later ones when it was so hot. There is additional calcium in the two part feed and I have just applied even more with a calcium/ magnesium supplement used in the hydroponics systems.
I am reasonably sure the issue was the extreme heat because (for reasons I won't go into here) I was much too late to get any shading on. The outdoor ones are all fine, and they are in ring culture pots with the plants in the same mix as in the greenhouse ones. I know they will have roots in the soil now but the feeding roots will mostly be in the pot medium.

 

First nagina outside tomatoes starting to blush for me. I also didn't realise quite how many fruits cherry rosella produces, a lot more than my other cherry sungold. Hopefully they'll be tasty, I only grew it once before years ago. Still waiting on any beefsteaks to ripen, I am looking forward to the BLT sandwiches

 

You may have not looked at the link I provided which refers specifically to the potential of calcium non -availability, that you mention.
See the reference to ammonium causing mineral lock-up and the difficulties of achieving a correct mineral balance -too much is as bad as too little !
The heat may well cause more fluid uptake , which is often evident in wilting at the tops when vascular uplift cannot match transpiration loss. The timing of watering is therefore a factor.
Syngenta provide a timetable for watering tomatoes which varies in terms of o'clock for individual varieties, it should be available from their technical website.
I will post a link if I have time to do it.

 

Hi Goldenlily, can I ask what compost you used?

My plants are exactly the same. Thick stems, huge lush leaves and the plants themselves look very healthy - too healthy. I've realised that the compost I've used (Westland 'The Gardener's multi purpose) with most of my plants probably has too much nitrogen, and so they're focusing on green leafy growth rather than the fruits. I believe it's also inhibiting the absorption of the calcium, causing an insane amount of blossom end rot! In pretty much all of the bigger varieties the fruits are basically being rejected. They're rotting when the fruits are still tiny. It's super disheartening. I've been giving them calcium every week since the blossom end rot started, and in some of the plants there's been a tiny bit of improvement, but mostly it's continued. I've chopped down a few plants already because of it. I've saved a couple of side shoots and the tops of a couple of the chopped down plants to propagate in water or compost. I know it's too late for them to do much but it's a bit of an experiment. It's lucky that cherry tomatoes aren't affected by BER, so I've been picking some of them at least.

The few plants that I planted in grow bag compost have been fine! I might've had to pick one or two fruits off in the beginning but now they have huge healthy tomatoes growing. Why didn't I grow them all in that instead like I always used to?! :(

 

Due to health issues and desperation on my part to get my plants potted up I used 50% farm yard manure and 50% multi purpose compost. I haven't checked for blosson end rot yet. I do not grow cherry tomatoes. I have to try and get down to the greenhouse to water today so will check what is going on. I have some fruit set, nowhere near ripe yet. Lots of flowers so fingers crossed.

 

10cm across and I think it's still growing.

 

Another massive harvest today from the Maskotka plants in the greenhouse.




They haven't been like this every day of course (most days I'm just picking a handful) but I can't recommend this variety enough for its reliability and the taste of its fruits. Ok so I've been discarding lots of split fruits but I guess I can spare a few.

As I may have mentioned previously, the stems naturally want to hang, so if they're growing near the ground they'll need even more support than the normal cordon varieties. I just use twine to 'hang' individual stems to a cross-wire or other support. The majority of the fruits though are coming from the two plants on the other side of the greenhouse.

 

I'd agree re Maskotka productivity. My poor plants are outside in tubs, and seems to have more fruit than foliage! Next time I'll keep them inside, though their habit could be a problem as they are so floppy.

 

My tomato plants are growing rather weirdly because of too lush compost. I watered them yesterday and noticed most of them have almost powdery mildew looking new growth which seems to right itself as it matures. I thought I was going to lose my whole crop when I first noticed it but the plants are growing, lots of flowers and now some setting fruit. I thought I had blossom end rot but it is the colour coming into the purple fruited one. Having not fed them up until now, I gave them a weak seaweed tonic to see if that calmed things down. Fingers crossed.

 

My outside Malachite Box are looking good. I'm giving them a gentle squeeze each morning to check if they're close to ripening. It's sometimes hard to know with these GWR tomatoes.