Gardener's Delight tomatoes
I’m puzzled.
Can’t figure out why 2011 has been such a bumper year for tomatoes.
Was it the BBQ summer ? Erm, I don’t think so. Or my magic green fingers? Only in my dreams.
As always, most of my tomatoes are grown in terracotta pots outside my back door, on a south-facing patio. After a few of years of neglect and indifferent results I decided to do things differently this year:
- I’ve tried – and tried is the important word here – to keep the compost uniformly moist (but not waterlogged) by watering more frequently. Not the usual OMG-the-tomatoes-have-completely-dried-out-let-me-deluge-them-with-water.
And for these efforts I’ve been rewarded with significantly fewer split tomatoes (classic symptoms of the oops-I-forgot-to-water-let’s-overcompensate-now approach). Plus, it may be my imagination, but the tomatoes seem to have much more flavour this year. Tomatoes flooded with water allegedly lose flavour and taste less concentrated, more watery.
- I’ve also fed the plants more this year. Normally I only feed tomatoes once the first truss of fruit has set, slavishly following instructions on the bottle of tomato feed. But this year I also used a balanced plant feed prior to fruit set, on the grounds that the nutrients in the potting compost might be exhausted by hungry plants after 2-4 weeks. I then switched to the high potassium tomato feed to encourage fruiting.
And this year my tomato plants are noticably stronger and healthier with lots of lush, green foliage. Often such lush foliage comes at the expense of flowers and fruit but this hasn’t been the case; happy to report that my tomato plants are positively dripping with fruit.
I kept things simple this year and grew mostly tried and trusted favourites:
- Gardener’s Delight (bright red, well flavoured and well known cherry tomatoes) 3 x
- Sungold (orange cherry tomatoes with exceedingly sweet tatste – yum!) 2 x
- ‘Striped Stuffer’ (have grown before and liked) 1 x
- An unknown plum tomato (donated by my mum – great flavour) 1 x
- Cherry tomato ‘Lilliput’ (random purchase of small plant at RHS Wisley – fabulous looking fruit but none have ripened yet) 1 x
Next year I’ll try some new varieties…..
Interesting to read how your tomatoes have fared; mine are only just ripening and the tiny ones ‘Cherriettes of Fire’ (surely a name made up by Homebase!) have started to turn red yesterday – just as the rain and wind started! Gardener’s Delight has popped up elsewhere as being a good one this year, I’ll have to bear that in mind for next year. At least no-one has reported blight yet! Glad you’ve had a worthwhile and tasty harvest, it’s what it’s all about!
Hi Caro, I love the name ‘Cherriettes of Fire’! My south facing patio has a white painted wall as a backdrop which I suspect is why the tomatoes starting ripening a few weeks ago – warm little microclimate. No sign of the dreaded blight yet but the rain could change all that……