Heartache again
I'm a little heartbroken at the moment as all my lovely outdoor toms have gone down with blight. You'd have thought I'd be hardened to such things by this point, but I'm not. I spent a good deal of last week madly bottling things, including creating vats of green tom chutney from the thousands of 'Millefleur' that I picked in a great hurry before burning the plants in hope that it might just be those to go down. But today I literally watched the 'Golden Queen' go brown. Clearly I'd have bottled them but I've cleared the local tip out of every suitable receptacle (and some clearly not) for bottling and canning.
But you always learn things from such hardship (and yes, hardship is a little dramatic, but it feels that way). I am not prepared to stop growing outdoor toms. I've thought about it. My mum tried to persuade me to stick to cabbages and other suitable fair for our climate-to which all I have to say is cabbage white mum, cabbage white! No I want outdoor toms and the dozen or so I did get to eat (Odessa, Kenilworth, Golden Queen and Millefleur) were nectar enough to tempt me into another year.
However, clearly I need a new strategy so I'm going to try two things. I going to eat my heritage seed hat and try some souped up F1s like Ferline (Joy Larkom recommended, so reason enough for me to try) and although I've just eaten my heritage seed hat (and yummy it was too) I'm going to persist with open pollinated heirlooms. Especially with Kenilworth, although I'll have to find new seed as you can't seed save from blighted plants, BUT-and it is worthy of being big-I'm going to grow them very differently.
Kenilworth is from the Heritage Seed Library and is local to my area and it's clearly very well adapted to my climate. It may have gone down, but it was the first to ripen and its thick skins withstand a lot of environmental abuse either from too much sun or rain. Next year though I'm not going to pinch out . . . ANYTHING, not a side shoot, not a single leaf to let in sun, I'm not even going to stop them, I'm just going to let them grow as they wish.
I read in the Kokopelli guide to seed saving that they never prune their tomatoes in fact they think it's a little barbaric. More importantly they have some observation that their untouched plants can muscle through blight. To back this up there is research from the University of California that shows growing tomatoes in a cage (rather than the Kokopelli way of laying the plants flat) is very successful and results in stronger plants that produce more crops. What they suggest is that you make a cage with wide enough mesh that you can pick through and let the toms scramble up. You need considerably wider spacing, but I'd give up a fair few plants to have just one or two that didn't go brown in front of me. In short you do nothing to toms other than give them good soil and food, no fiddly stuff, just let them grow as nature intended.
I am a glass half full kinda girl. My husband says I live in a permanently rose-tinted world and have an irritating habit of forgetting anything bad (I'd say that was a good survival strategy). Perhaps I'm optimistically going forth stubborn to the reality, but I can gamble on one more broken heart for chance of plant laden with ripe fruit. I've always wanted to know why you chest feels like it hurts when you've had your heartbroken. Is your heart actually sighing or is it just psychosomatic sympathy?
Oh and the melons exploded, but that's another story.
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~41~RS~)
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Ahh Alys, so sorry your outdoor toms never made it.
Don't ever give up, if gardeners weren't optimists, we'd never plant a single seed.
Just eaten my first ever crop from an outdoor tomato. My daughter planted a left over Sub Arctic Plenty in her little allotment patch, and it's put my greenhouse ones to shame.
Didn't you grow alicanté toms this year? My under glass ones are doing nicely now.
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I've been suffering mockery for not pinching out my tomatoes this year (they're growing in a very rough cage made of string, instead!) but maybe it's actually helped. They're ripening in bits, but the fruit's coming out very nice.
What about the melons? I have been wondering what became of them!
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sorry to hear that alys
I spray my outdoor toms (gardeners delight) with copper fungicide, so I almost never get blight
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Gosh, it all sounds so complex! I've grown toms outside my backdoor for the first time, and have largely left them to it; even though I only have a modest crop of six, this matters not to my son who helped me grow them from seed. Last year we tried to grow sweetcorn and pumpkins; the slugs finished off the former, and how disappointing was it to find that earwigs had got into the developing cobs and ruined the lot, so to some smaller extent I can sympathise!
On a related issue, can any of you bloggers give me some advice on whether it is possible to be a weekend only allotment keeper? Am I mad to even entertain such a prospect? Some advice would be welcome.
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Sorry Alys, But I pinched out some toms and left the others - all the same as yours. I don't know what to suggest but cabbage white isn't a part of it.
Yours, Vaughan.
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Vaughan
Oh don't tell me that, though I'm a bit of a stickler for doing things myself so will proceed with experiment none the less. You can come back in a year time and say ' I told you so'. and I'll eat another hat.
bessyj
take on the allotment. Dr. Claire is a weekend allotmenteer and she told me she can't freeze her french beans quick enough today, so there's reason enough to give it ago. Rosemary (series producer) pretty much only gets to see her allotment on weekend and she been picking away merrily all summer, more enough reason. I think the key to it don't take on too much at once. See if you can start my sharing a bit on allotment until you get a rythme and way to manage the space. Good on you for getting some toms though!
Sampryke,
I'm always a bit warry of copper fungicide and in the past it hasn't worked for me. Tell me do you spray ahead of getting the blight and if so at what point do you start?
Clean skies
the melons is a saga about greed and stupidity and i'm still a bit too shameful to tell it yet. . . .
Alicante went down with blight. all indoors so far so good. Invented a new chutney called chocney with the green alicante. Will post recipe soon as think am on to a winner with this one!
Anyhow more the point am off to L.A on Saturday for a break from the blight/cabbage white/whitefly/mildew/mice/sawflies/tomato moth/red spider mite/
am taking my camera so will post if I find any interesting food growing stuff
think of me of me, the palest thing, on venice beach and I'll raise a glass your way.
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A sad tale indeed. Chin up Alys, enjoy your trip.
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Hi Alys,
Sorry to hear that your Alicante went down with blight too. I've got some growing in pots down the side of the house and luckily they're still doing well, but I always worry when they get to this stage! Incidentally, when you've been forced to pick green fruits, have you tried storing them with a red plant to get them to change colour?!
I tried growing Totem on my patio this year for the first time and it's been amazing. More tomatoes than plant!!!
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Sorry to hear about that Alys, especially for the Millefleur, they looked fantastic on tv. I've been lucky, no blight here in Oxfordshire so far, though very few tomatoes have gone red yet either. Surely next summer must be warmer than the last two...
I like the idea of just leaving the plants to their own devices (possibly because I'm a bit lazy) but I've also noticed that the sideshoots do tend to look a lot healthier than the old bits of the plant.
Have a good trip, at least there'll be the chance for you to go red in LA!
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Hi Alys
Sorry to read about the blight. I’ve lost all my outdoor and indoor toms with blight over the last few weeks.
I’m interested to learn of the no pruning method. My outdoor toms were planted and then left to their own devices and left to grow unchecked. It made no difference and they went down with blight in fact they were probably the first ones attacked. I was considering I might do better next year if I did remove all the side shoots but obviously I need a new plan for my outdoor toms. I didn’t believe that indoor toms got blight but I can now rethink that one as well. I was considering trying to save some seed this year but thanks for the info not to save seed from blight infested crops. Must work on this cage system you mention.
Hope you enjoyed your hols in LA
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Hello Alys,
I am new to this Bloging lark but I must say that my outdoor tomatos were u/s.If there were a prize for pea size I would be a winner. Enjoy your hols.
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alys are taking suggestions for preventing blight and cabbage white damage in 2009.
please don't take this wrong way but you are better then this. May we can help you do better if we sent in suggestion to help you do better in future.
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My husband David and I are so disappointed not to be able to see Gardeners' World tonight- after all the pre-programme build-up, I was really excited to see how the programme will be different under its new presenter and also to catch up with all the latest news on the allotment and Berrylands garden after such a difficult summer.
But no- here in Wales we have to watch a local rugby match and, what's worse it'll be the same all winter, depriving us of a Friday night treat! I wouldn't mind if they would just tell us when we can watch it but it seems to be a secret. Help! Can I see it on BBc i Player? (I managed to see a short section on saving seeds on the computer) I have phoned up the Beeb before but no-one understands why we prefer gardening to rugby or soccer! Are we alone?
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I moved this summer so didn't plant any toms but I lost my entire main crop last year in a couple of days. Fortunately I had grown cherry toms in hanging baskets(for the 1st time) 4 plants literally produced hundreds! The phrase "coming out of my ears" springs to mind.
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I grow Gardeners Delight on the patio in six big pots every year. I was so worried about blight because of everybody else's tales of woe so I had been studying all the plants carefully several times a day (border line obsessive perhaps!). I thought I saw a sign of black on one of them a few weeks ago and immediately sprayed the whole lot (and the privet hedge they were leaning against) with bordeaux mixture. I don't know if it was the start of blight or not, but this year turned out to be my best ever for tomatoes. I got lots of fruit (not that it ripened very quickly without any sun) and the plants still have lots of green leaves on them even now.
I feel a bit guilt to have had such a good year when everyone else hasn't.
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hi
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