Sweeter Tom's

[carloso]

Talking to one of the old boys down the allotment he reckoned that placing brown sugar on to the compost or where ones Tom's are planted made them sweeter, My wquestion is has anyone try'd this ? and does it work?

Do you think it would work with Chilli's ? it maybe another experiment required to be carried out ?

carl

[carloso]

[Mrs Ava]

Never heard of that one Carl!  Would have thought it would have attracted the ants!!  I have heard that not over watering and feeding them produces more concentrated tomato flavour, and by not overwatering chillies, and then flooding them as they are ripening produces hotter peppers.  If adding sugar made them sweet, then wouldn't mulching with seaweed make things taste of the sea??  ;D

[jennym]

Wouldn't think it would work myself. Struggling here to remember stuff I was taught, but  I think that the sweetness in tomatoes is due to a number of different sugars, such as dextrose, and that the sucrose content is less than 1% even in the sweetest tasting ones.Also, maybe the same problem may occur as happens with salty soil, reverse osmosis, which wouldn't be good for the plant if it did happen (if huge amounts of sugar was present in the soil). I would think that high light levels and ripening on the plant have a far greater impact than adding any substances.
And lastly - a jolly expensive way to produce sweet tomatoes!
Anway, you could try it yourself on one or two and report back  :)

[Merry Tiller]

Sounds like a wind up to me

[supersprout]

I have a feeling that roots in sugary compost might not transmit the sugar direct to the fruits. Worth a try with a couple, like jenny suggests?

For sweeter squash, some peeps put a wick of wool through the fruit stem from a jar of sugar water. That way it's taken direct into the fruit, and that does work ;D Sorry, going off thread a bit :-[

[Gadfium]

An odd coincidence: Last week an old gardener dropped by, we ended up in the greenhouse nattering about the plants.

He told me that when the tomatoes were almost ripe, to put a little sugar in a watering can and give them a good slurp. I'd never heard of it before. All his other tips - including nipping into the field to procure the vital ingredients for cow manure/sheep dropping tea - I'd come across, but not this one...

Anyone tried it?