Saturday 6 June 2009

First Tomatoes to Mature - Red Alert

Perhaps I should rename my blog tomato weekly because It has been a while since my last post!

Anyway, we've had some wonderful tomato growing weather recently and all my plants are doing fine. However, as I write it is pouring down outside, but fortunately, this season all the tom plants are covered from the rain - I'm determined not to suffer from blight as I did last season.

My most advanced plants and the first tomatoes to mature this season will be Red Alert probably followed by Tumbling Tom.

I sowed the seed of these varieties back at the end of February and pampered and protected them to get the earliest toms possible. Of course this is not really practical because if I added up all the time spent and the extra heat etc. just to get a few plants to mature in June, each tom costs much more than it would in the shops ... but I grew them and they'll taste fantastic - I hope!

As far as protection is concerned, I do have two small greenhouses but the real challenge is growing outdoors, or perhaps outdoors but protected from the rain. If we have several days of wet weather, blight is almost guaranteed so some protection is worth the extra effort.

The tomatoes in the picture above, Red Alert, should be turning red soon!

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