Tuesday 3 August 2010

Tomatoes

I had intended to show you a mouthwatering array of home grown toms, but I seem to have got the light setting wrong on the camera for this shot and they all look more anaemic than Tesco's offerings. So you must take my word for it that they are lovely -the varieties for gardener's info are top row left to right Black Prince, Mr Stripy, Marmande, and bottom row left to right Sungold, Sweet Million, Costelluto Fiorentina. I would recommend any of them, but I especially liked Black Prince, with it's dark and unusual colouring, but delicious flavour, and Mr Stripy is good too, -I think this is also known as Tigerella in some catalogues.

So far, and I hardly dare say it, there is no trace of the dreaded tomato blight. Not wishing to be slow to award myself the credit for success I am putting this mostly down to my Anti Blight Measures taken earlier in the year, (although I also suspect that the much drier weather this year has helped quite a bit too).  We are getting a steady and manageable supply of ripe tomatoes at the moment, plenty for salads and everyday needs with some to give away, but not a super huge amount for sauce making for the freezer as yet.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the plants keep on producing and stay healthy. Any one else had improvements on blight this year?

7 comments:

  1. Yes, Tigerella is synonymous with Mr Stripey I believe. I'm also growing it this year. No blight yet here. There has not been enough high humidity weather,with coinciding high temperature, which is essential for the development of the spores when they settle on the tomato or potato.
    Black prince looks good. If you are saving seed from it, I could swap you some Debarao Black which is hugely productive.

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  2. Hi Kathy,
    Very nice indeed. Once again we are blight free and picking the fruit daily. I have one exception in a mystery tom called "Rainbow Delight" or something to that effect. It is as vigorous as the others but no fruit as of yet.
    Doc

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  3. No blight, but also no tomatoes. My blossoms that I had, just dried up, I believe we had a total of 5 puny tomatoes from 2 plants.

    Your tomatoes look great! Those black ones look very interesting, have not seen before.

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  4. I haven't seen those black ones either. I'm glad you have no blight this year. Good luck with the resr of the growing season.--Inger

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  5. I also treated my tomatoes. potatoes and grapes for blight this year and have had no problems. BUT my very old quince tree was looking very sad and the fruit mostly fell off, the nursery told me it had blight!! Much more difficult to treat because of its size and I had to makes masses of mixture, then water it in under the full spread of the tree. Diane

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  6. Hi Ian, yes that sounds great, I always like to try new varieties, I will make sure I save some seed from the Black Prince for you.

    Don't know that one Doc, hope it tastes as nice as it sounds.

    Sorry to hear that Sharon, we have bad years for tomatoes too

    Thanks Inger, I like the unusual ones like Black Prince

    Hi Diane, I had no idea quinces could get blight, what a shame I love quinces for preserves. Hope it survives ok.

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  7. We have had no blight either, is that because we have had less rainfall this year?

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