Talking about tomatoes, part 1 - Jan 2015

 It's tomato time... finally! We had a cold, late start to spring last year. I sowed my seeds inside and usually I just need to put them on a sunny windowsill and they sprout fine. Not so this time - they sulked, refused to come up, and those which did poke up a sprout wouldn't go any further, so I had to resort to putting them in the hot water cupboard. That worked, but I was well behind schedule, and even though the weather's been great for the couple of months they've only just started ripening. Better late than never though and I am now going to gorge myself on fresh tomatoes for hopefully the next three months at least. (Pictured above: Juliet)

 Tomato notes - glasshouse

• Juliet - first to ripen as usual. Always reliable, has lots of green fruit and flowers.
• Brandywine - I noticed very sporadic fruit set with a lot of unfertilised flowers on each truss.
• Brown Berry - looking promising with lots of ripening fruit.
• Black Cherry - lots of fruit. Starting to ripen. I'm not sure how dark the fruit has to get - I tried to pick one and it didn't want to release so I'll wait a bit longer.
• Black Krim - sporadic fruit set as well. Is this typical of beefsteaks? I grow Black Krim every year... I think it is normal as they grow so big.
• Yellow Pear - not much fruit yet, still flowers. As I recall it was one of the last seedlings to pop up.
• Green Grape - still lots of flowers. The fruit is starting to ripen too.

 The potager is filling up. The tomatoes are right next to the glasshouse. They are a forest of leaves and laterals... I need to spend some time in the evening pruning a bit!

Tomato notes - Potager

• Kumato - I was given two cuttings of this by a friend. I'm not sure of its qualities, but it's grown faster and developed fruit faster than the other tomatoes planted outside. Also it's less bushy than the other plants - I wonder if this is because the plants are lateral cuttings. Fruit is not ripe yet, but looking promising.
• Green Grape - has flowers and green fruit
• Brandywine - no fruit yet as far as I can tell
• Juliet - the winner again. Just started ripening.
• Brown Berry - some green fruit and flowers.
• Black Krim - some fruit.

So that's how the tomatoes are faring so far. It's also worth noting that so far, I haven't had any trouble with pests like caterpillars. I did add neem granules at planting and have also top dressed with neem granules again. I've used Tui Novatec as a fertiliser along with sheep pellets and compost.