Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Tomatoes - the second attempt

On Sunday I pulled out all the tomato plants. One or two had started to die off and frosts are forecast for this week. And I wanted to prepare the beds for some other crops. All up we had 12 tomato plants of a couple of different varieties, Berner Rose and Tommy Toe.

Last year, when we had a cool and reasonably wet summer, none of the seedlings started in the garage then under plastic outdoors grew to be viable plants. This year we had a gloriously warm and dry summer. I started the tomato seeds early in the spare bedroom which worked really well. I let the seedlings acclimatise outside for a while then transplanted them, and the plants grew healthy and strong. Loads of flowers turned into loads of small green tomatoes... but it was all too slow and autumn arrived. Despite the sunny days, the cooler temperatures left us with few ripening tomatoes.


Finally a couple of weeks ago I started pulling the ones that had started to change colour off the plants and put them in a bowl inside the house near the window. Now we've had six ripe enough to eat (very tasty) and a few more in the bowl are almost there.

Next year I am sure we will do better again, with a soon-to-be-revealed new and improved strategy.

8 comments:

  1. same. i pulled mine out yesterday and im making green tomatoe pickles with them. i only managed a few red ones also. the cherry tomatoes did a lot better. Onwards and upwards!

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  2. have you thought of making a greenhouse? we had heaps of tomatoes for ages, all ripe by end of March.I've got capsciums still growing, and we had about 10 pumpkins. not bad for a 3m x 3m. best thing we have done, highly recommend it. very inexpensive too.

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  3. Funny you mention that Heather :-) we started construction on one last weekend. It's too windy here to risk a poly tunnel so we bought a (hopefully) more robust kit. It's about the same size as yours, plenty for the tomatoes, chillies and basil.

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  4. sounds interesting - can't wait to spy it as I drive past :P if it is 'real greenhouse' i'm going to be very jealous !

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  5. When finished it will look like this Heatehr :-)
    http://www.greenhousesonline.com.au/image.php?type=T&id=4

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  6. Fro here if you are interested:
    http://www.greenhousesonline.com.au/home.php?cat=2

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  7. ok i'm jealous, they are very cute:) you're going to have so much fun in there!

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  8. I really must get onto a veggie garden, I'm so terribly slack, it's something that's been on my wish list for years. Good luck with your tomato growing.

    I'm new here and keen to see more of Tassie. I've visited twice and loved it, it's my perfect climate and so beautiful (I love the cold).

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