Tomato Growing 2025

I tend to grow my plants closer together than some might, I have never had a plant with no flowers or fruit, either in the border soil or in pots. For the most part tommies seem tough old plants, just look at the ones in garden centres that have not been sold, pot bound and neglected, but have small fruit on them.

 

In response to this I have done a short video you may wish to look at

 

I grow my greenhouse ones close as they are in Quadgrow pots, each pair are very close and only a little more space between the pairs of reservoirs.

Today I've put a "sun hat" on my Allotment greenhouse , some reed screening. It's a bit crude but it's only for a few days in the extreme heat. It brought the temperature down by 5 C within minutes.

 

Maskotka cropping really well this year. This is just today's haul, and I've still left some on. We left our neighbour in charge last week and she said she took loads.

 

Well done, there are fruits on mine but they ate resolutely solid green at the moment.

 

What variety is the small dark one in the middle @JWK ?

 

All mine are, too, @Allotment Boy
5 varieties, all under glass.

 

First one of mine is ripening now, bloody butcher, a week or two earlier than the last two years due to the good weather we had in April and may.

 

I too am growing Bloody Butcher, not grown it before and impressed. Ok we have had a super spring and not bad summer so far so that could well be the reason I have had ripe BBs since about 10 days ago.This is in an unheated greenhouse in Scotland. Pretty good going! They are my first to ripen, even earlier than my go to favourite like just about everybody I know as well…Sungold. BB are a good size, nice flavour and I will grow again. It is an open pollinating Heirloom variety so presume it will come true from seed? but suppose I will need to put a muslin or similar bag over the flowers on a truss to stop x pollination?

 

Thanks @JWK - I prefer savoury/tangy over the sweet so I may well try them next year.

 

Had our first tommies of the year, two Sungold, not grown them before, not that fussed with them.

 

Bloody Butcher is one of the very best earlies, IMHO.

Yes, use an organza bag if you want to 100% sure of excluding cross pollination, but it's unlikely. I've taken pics of a Bloody Butcher flower and, by contrast, a flower of Ambrosia Gold. In the latter, the stigma (which receives the pollen), sticks out of the another cone containing the flower's own pollen. So foreign pollen could either float by and stick to the stigma, or be introduced by an insect. The Bloody Butcher flower, however, keeps its stigma inside the another cone, so the flower's own pollen is the only pollen to which the stigma is likely to be exposed. If you don't want to bag, I suggest you pick a simple, round fruit not a fused one as fusing can distort the structure of the flower and the another cone may not surround and enclose the stigma.