I tell you what. It has been a long time coming!
I planted my tomato crop in mid-November, which is probably the latest I have ever planted. I think it was because I still had broad beans in the bed that were also late.
To make matters worse, the extreme heat knocked the stuffing out of the plants for week on end. They were just struggling to survive let alone produce fruit and ripen.
So to my surprise, with last weeks weather being sub 30°C, the tomatoes started to recover and ripen.
Without further ado, here are my first tomatoes of the summer of 2013/2014.
My tomatoes
There are Tigerella, San Marzano, and a few Broad Ripple Yellow Current down the bottom. All delicious, full in flavour, and we had some in our salad for dinner.
There are a colossal amount of fruit still on the vine, so hopefully they will ripe this week. I might even have enough to make some pasta sauce to preserve for winter.
Who else has a late crop of tomatoes? Did the heat kill them off, or did you harvest before the new year?
Our tomatoes started off slow but we had some by Christmas. Tom Thumbs if I recall. Other than that, our plants suffered bad from the heat. 13 days over 40 degrees will do that.
We had some larger tomatoes cook on the vine. Had to remove them quickly so they didn’t rot and infect the others on the vine.
I started harvesting way before Christmas and i am still going. I planted maybe 15 plants but had so many freebies coming up i was giving them away. The bowl on the kitchen bench has not been empty since mid December. Mostly small cherry tomatoes but the big ones are coming in now. Yum Yum I cant stop eating them to get any quantity to make into sauce.
Brilliant harvest Lynda. I am going to plan well ahead this year and start my seedlings off in August under cover. Probably won’t plant as many onions either, to give me a bit of space early on in the season.
We started picking tomatoes about two weeks ago but we planted in October. We’ve had problems with sunburn and blossom end rot due to a bit of irregular watering. But there are more ripening so we should get a reasonable crop.
And I thought it was just me Mick. Hope you get a decent harvest over the next few weeks.
I’ve just had my first few ripen but only the toms Ive grown on the “weeds” from Lynda’s garden. 😉 There is a heap of fruit still on them and heaps more flowers too. They’re all cherry toms. My other toms out the back are really small and stunted but alkaline soil will do that. I have 1 green tomato but a surprising amount of flowers. Not nearly enough for the 60-80kgs I want to put up for the year but you get that. Live and learn. Oh, and the New Years Day frost we had didn’t help either. Crazy weather.
Nice weeds if you can get them! Now that you are a curd nerd, did you know that you can raise the acidity of the soil by watering the tomatoes with excess whey? I used it at the start of the season to give the tomatoes a boost. x
Duly noted and SQUEE! Thank you. I know you can add vinegar too and I would go the ACV route if I took it but as a combination of salt and vinegar is also a weed killer I’ve been a little nervous about watering with vinegar. :/ Whey it is!
Mine are just starting to ripen now, both at home and in the community garden. It’s been a funny season for pumpkins and tomatoes this year.
Funny indeed. My pumpkins are all vine and bugger all pumpkin! I think that four or five flowers set, which is very disappointing considering the size of the vine.
I’ve been picking bush tomatoes for weeks but also managed to get them in early for once – even had a few tomatoes for Christmas for a change. Chutney, two batches of sauce and a batch of salsa made from them so far and I’m still picking them. The taller tomatoes are just starting to ripen now but the crops are dismal and lots of the fruit is rotting. From now on I think I will stick to bush tomatoes. The cherry tomato I planted very early was disappointing. Lots of fruit for a start then it just started dyeing. Yet another tomato I won’t bother with again. Must admit I have had the best crop in years but I did plant them in straight cow manure sourced from the feed lot next to the farm hubby works on. Am definately going down that path again.
Great idea about the cow manure. Maybe it is getting warm enough now that we should be planting in late Feb/Mar just like they do further north? Just a thought. I might try it out as I have a few rough tomato seedlings sprouting up everywhere.
Me! Late crop tomatoes, zuchinnis who have failed to grow big and produce more than one piece of fruit each 🙁 even basil that wont do its usual thing! sigh 🙁
It’s not just you Emma. My zucchini crop has been very ordinary. The plants have even begun to die, with about 3 zucchinis per bush. They now all have powdery mildew, so will pull them out on the weekend. Basil did well in pots though.
I have just put some basil in pots because of my dodgy crop. Hoping for the best. i was so surprised after having a bumper winter season that summer growing was so hard! Ahh the lessons you learn…