Tomato Growing 2026

Teabag seedling pots topped up. Waiting for Pa's Pride to arrive in the post, then that's all the micros sorted.

 

Heh, no. They're (supposedly) single use/biodegradable non woven seedling bags. I just keep washing and re-using them.

 

Shows how biodegradable they really are
We often use those little coir plugs you rehydrate and the "paper" on those lasts for at least 4 years in the soil

 

Potted-on all the peppers and micro tom plantlets this morning and decapitated the overwintering Chocolate Drop cuttings.

 

My very sensible 2026 grow list. Let's see if I can stick to it!

 

Lovely, I can blend in, I have 20 varieties on my list for this season. I will grow old strain of Gardener's Delight too.
I will add my list at some point.

 

Here is my list (I partially translated some varieties names):

Greenhouse
1 Cuore Antico di acqui terme
2 Lucid Gem
3 Jasha Yugoslavian
4 Black Crimea
5 Bull Heart Exhibition
6 Minusinky from Scherbina
7 Minusinky sugary
8 Gialetto Brindisino (longkeeper)
9 Orange Russian 117
10 Candy of the Forbidden City
11 Bundevice
12 Chi-chio-sun
13 Unknown
Outside
1 Pelino
2 Gartenperle
3 Gardener's Delight
4 Percovka
5 Little Red Corvette
6 Francuzky Grozdevoy
7 Turtle grape (received as present, will be surprise as can't find anything about it)

 

All I can find re Turtle Grape is that it's a sister line to Garden Olive, a dark variety bred by J&L in the USA.

 

Oh, I just turned up this, from the breeder via TLC on Facebook:


"Lee Goodwin:This tomato is related to my wild tiger, but is rounder with a beautiful mottled design on the skin. It is one of the most prolific tomatoes in the garden. The flavor is as intense as the color.
65-70 days on a big, healthy plant.
Seed packet says. Gorgeous tomatoes on a plant about 5 foot tall. One inch grape tomatoes are dark mahogany with iridescent green stripes.
The flavor is as intense as the color.
Lee: Turtle Grape first showed up in a friend's garden who was growing my Wild Tiger as nursery stock. Thule brought some of the fruit to the Santa Fe Market where we were both vendors. The strain wasn't stable, but I selected it for several summers. Many of these lines go way back to strains Brad of Wild Boar and Mark McCaslin of Frogsleap Farm. The stripes trace back to Green Zebra (Tom Wagner)"

 

Excellent, thank you; yes, it came from J&L as a present with another variety I bought on ebay.

 

I've decided on these for this year, some old favourites and some which are *new to me:

Sungold - orange cherry
Gardener's Delight OG - red cherry
Michael Pollan - green/yellow pear
Garnet - dark cherry
*Orange Bourgoin - orange cherry
*Haley's Purple Comet - purple cherry
*Pinky - reddish pink cherry
*Mexico Midget - red cherry
*Dwarf Velvet Night - purple cherry

Always hard to whittle down the growing list!

 

I'm just doing two plants each of Maskotka and Sungold, the former well tried & tested here but the latter will be a new one for us.

I must admit I find it difficult to understand why people grow so many plants each year. Maybe you've found a way of extending the season with all the different varieties? I mean where do you put them all?

 

It's a long story
First of all, tomatoes are delicious, I can eat loads in salads as main's side or just snacking straight from the greenhouse, or have a large beefy tomato to replace a meal. For example, your Sungold: no cherry varieties sold in supermarket can beat the intensity of flavour. The same for a larger tomato varieties, they are flavourful and come in different shapes and sizes - very sweet, juicy or less juicy, or on a sour side. There is an endless amount of varieties now, I grow new every year (to use all the seeds I hoarded) and I make notes of the best to repeat of when I get tired of new .
Secondly, I'm still learning, plants don't fully open their potential to me yet, I don't get 5-10 kg from one plant; still with many plants I have enough to eat, to share and preserve for winter (in 2025 I marinated, made tomatoes in tomato juice, pure tomato juice, dried tomatoes, froze tomatoes for stews).
I think in a few years I could stop on 10 to max 15 plants (including mini).