And they all came tumbling down! (Tomatoes)

Member Name: SueMagee

Product:	Tomatoes
Date:	15/09/01 (1889 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Heavy cropper, good flavour, reasonably disease-resistant.

Disadvantages: Big plants!

The postman thinks that I don't know what he's doing, but I do, I do. He conceals himself behind the hedge at the end of the drive and peeps round to see if the coast is clear. When he's satisfied that it is, he races down the path, positively shoves the post through the door and then races back down the drive, pausing only to catch his breath once he's out of sight of the house. "She's been making advances" you're thinking, or "it's those dogs of hers". No you're wrong, it's tomatoes.

I have, you see, what gardeners call a glut. Actually, it's rather gone beyond a glut, it's a landslide. I'm running out of places to put tomatoes and things to do with them. Visitors to the house depart with a carrier bag full of tomatoes and frankly, people have stopped coming, or if they have to come they try and make arrangements to come when the tomatoes will not be multiplying themselves quite so rapidly. Double glazing salesmen give the house a miss, and no one has offered to tarmac the drive for weeks. I suppose I'd better explain how it happened, hadn't I? It all started back in April...

"Der yer want some tomaty plants?" It's that sort of a village. It's not exactly barter, but when the chutney's ready you remember who gave you the plants, the old gentleman down the road who's just lost his wife and the lady who's been too busy looking after her mother to make any herself. When you bake there's always someone who'd think a slice of cake was a real treat and they, in turn will do a favour for someone else. That was how the plants arrived.

Frankly they looked a bit weedy and rather delicate when they turned up, in a little tray where ten of them had germinated. "Tumbler" they were called and it was a new departure for me. In previous years I've grown cordon varieties. They're the upright plants that you
tie in to canes and remove certain bits but leave others. It may sound obvious to say it, but all the watering has to be done at ground level and this was playing havoc with an already-dodgy back, so I'd determined that I wasn't going to grow cordon varieties again, I was going to grow something that I could put on the staging and I wouldn't have to do the bending.

I potted the seedlings on into 3-inch pots, still expecting that I would be left with just a few to move into the final ten-inch pots, but I was surprised to find that they all flourished. Last year I grew six cordon tomatoes along the side of the greenhouse that didn't have staging. Earlier in the year I added staging to that side of the greenhouse. I promise that I won't do things, you see, and then I end up doing them because someone gives me the plants or they looked such good value at a charity stall at the village fete. Obviously I couldn't succumb to temptation if I didn't have the space to grow cordon tomatoes!

So, in early May, I had ten plants in large pots filled with John Innes No 2 compost and they spaced out nicely along the staging in the greenhouse, which is eight feet long by six feet wide. On the face of it I thought that I would have more space for the pants than I'd had last year because I was putting five plants where last year I'd had six. I was proud of myself. This, I thought, would be easy.

I didn't start feeding the plants until the first tomatoes had set - tiny beads appear where the flowers have faded. I have a ritual in the summer evenings. I water the plants, which require about a pint to two pints of water each depending on the weather. The hotter the weather the more the plants will need. I add a liquid feed on alternate waterings. My favourite is Tomorite. I don't know that it's any better than the others, but I've always used it as did my father before me. The watering and genera
l primping is soothing and relaxing.

By the end of May I was shocked at the profusion of growth that the plants had produced. Because you don't remove any side shoots as you do with cordon varieties the plants just go wild. Walking into the greenhouse was like walking into a tropical forest and when I went out the plants would shut the door behind me. The growth was about 60 to 70 cm high and nearly as much across. The length of the staging was inadequate for five plants and one plant on each side had to go under the staging. Even then I was having to edge down the central gangway sideways to avoid damaging the plants.

The last frost in this part of the world can be as late as early June, so I closed the greenhouse at night, which, on reflection, was a mistake. Tomatoes require good ventilation, particularly at night and I should have left a window open. We had an attack of tomato leaf mould (purplish brown patches appear on the underside of the leaves but the tops appear to have yellow patches). The recommended way of dealing with this is to spray with a product containing carbendazim at the first signs of disease, but I can't see the point of growing our own food if I'm going to add chemicals to it, so I restricted myself to picking off the affected leaves and increasing the ventilation (on hot days I put a fan at the greenhouse door to pull in and circulate some fresh air). This didn't bottom the problem and I have had recurring attacks throughout the summer.

By mid July I was stunned at the number of tomatoes that were appearing on the plants. It would not be an exaggeration to say that there were thousands. Tumbler is marketed as needing no support, but I think that I will put some supports into the pots next year as the weight of the enormous crop means that the plant simply collapses over the side of the pot and the tomatoes rest on the staging. This is not a problem in itself, but if there is any dampne
ss it can be the start of an attack of mildew which spreads rapidly. Other than this the plant is virtually fool-proof provided that it's given regular and consistent watering.

The first ripe tomatoes appeared in early August. I'm used to cordon-variety tomatoes ripening in mid July and I'm not certain if the lateness was due to the variety I was growing or to the weather conditions. Although Tumbler produces cherry tomatoes I've found that they are larger than the average cherry tomato, but the flavour is quite intense and not too sweet. When I cook with them I've found that I need to add a little sugar to bring out the full flavour. By the middle of August the plants were cropping heavily and since then I have been picking an average of a kilo of tomatoes a day. One day I picked nearly three kilos.

Now, when there are only two of you there is a limit to the number of tomatoes that you can use. Peter is used to the question "What would you like to eat with your tomatoes?" I have made so many packs of tomato soup, pasta sauce, and tomatoes and courgettes that both our freezers have reached bursting point. Even casual visitors depart with a carrier bag full of tomatoes. There's a garden trug heaped high with tomatoes in the kitchen and I haven't been to do today's harvest yet.

The plants will crop easily until the end of next month at which point I'll use what's left to make green tomato chutney as I need the greenhouse space for other plants that I'm over-wintering. Next year I'll grow fewer plants - six would probably be a more sensible number for the size of greenhouse, but I'll certainly be growing the same variety again.

Now, before you go, could I let you have some tomatoes?

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