Tomato Growing 2025

Today's pickings - a small harvest but more than enough for me. If it goes like last year, by the end of the month I'll be making tomato soup.
The bigger ones are Outdoor Girl, which likes to make oddly shaped tomatoes by fusing two together.The cherry ones are Veranda Red. The Veranda Red is a particularly nice plant - a lovely short stocky dark green bush which needs little if any support - I used the last of my seed this year and will buy more for next year.

 

I tried crossing honeymoon and merrygold but neither seems to make much pollen, or at least I had a hard time extracting it. Emasculating the flowers wasnt too difficult as they are big ones on both but yeah, the pollen didnt come out...

What I would like ideally is a super fruity sweet tom with blight resistance, merrygold is nice and firm but isnt very sweet. Has anyone here grown primabella and its relatives, how flavourful were they?

 

Good evening all,

Does anyone have an idea what may be wrong with these tomatoes?
It has one red tomato that looks fine, a green bunch that looks fine, but then an awful looking red bunch and a suspect green bunch!

I wondered if it could be blight, but there don’t appear to be any signs on the leaves or stems.

Thanks all.

 

That's what I feared.
How common would this be without any sign on the leaves or stem?

I'll remove it anyway.

 

Unusual as usually blight spreads from the stem onto the fruit and I dont see any damage on that stem. Could it just be cosmetic skin damage?

 

I dehydrated some nice cherry tomatoes, first dowsing them in salt then washing it off when they were fully dry, and store them in olive oil. Really tasty, little savoury explosives. Do you do something similar?

 

Yeah, the stems and leaves look fine on this plant.
Funny one - never had this happen before.
Hope you are right, I wanted to save seed from this one - which probably isnt sensible if its diseased!

Bad yeah all round for me - far far away from what JWK has posted above!

 

@THFC looks like physical damage to me, I've seen similar damage from hail on apples and pears.
This looks like the damage in your picture Bacterial Speck see here https://www.seedparade.co.uk/news/p...ify-prevent-and-treat-common-tomato-diseases/ but it's described as a cold weather problem and affects all parts of the plant.
The only other thing it might be is shield bug damage.

 

I'm now picking the yellow Ola Polka. Since these were sold as a patio variety, I was rather expecting the neat little bushes like Veranda Red, and then was surprised when they sprawled all over the place. I've had to prop them up against a wall because I don't have any suitable supports. Next year they will get the big Lidl / Parkside pots with water reservoir and built in supports which are currently occupied by Outdoor Girl, as I have finished the O.G. seeds now.

In future I will research my patio tomatoes more thoroughly!

 

Thanks Nigel.
If physical damage then its hard to think where it may have come from, I've had them in the a poly-tunnel for most, albeit not all, of the season.
I've also seen pictures that look similar- annoyingly I can no longer find the site, despite finding it last night, that said it could be something to do with poly-tunnel conditions.
Agree - some of them do also look like Shield big damage.
I've picked the tomatoes now. May risk trying one!

 

blight toms are safe to eat just taste bad as they half rot, zombified by the oomcyte host