Toms seem to growing well, but they are still all green and small. We have had sunshine here, so I just wish even one would turn red. More hot weather forecast, so I must not be too impatient. They all outside in sheltered front, back garden and a few extras at the allotment. More sun please.
yes I think this will be a good outdoor tomato year hopefully not a blight and green tomato chutney loaded one
Same here B, lapping up the Sun in the back garden but green and smallish. :sunny:
you need to strip off the leaves that are blocking the sun shine on the tomatos
I stripped off all bar he 4 top leaves three weeks ago and I also restricted height to 4 trusses as soon as the 4th truss appeared. I am picking pounds of good red tomatoes now and am aiming to get most of the small ones (strillo) frozen whole, whilst enjoying the lovely sweet big ones (ferline) and I will be dehydrating the excess. The outside ones are doing just as well as those sheltered by polythene. I feed comfrey water now, weekly and previously it was chase tomato food. They are on a good sunny patio suntrap
My own thought is that too much tomato energy goes into feeding the leaves, so I just cut out the middle man
Absolutely right those leaves need to come off! By this time of the year the stems should be all ripening toms and only a few leaves left.
Get the sun to the fruits and they will ripen up pretty quick :happy7:
I agree that the leaf removal is a good way to get them to ripen quicker ... but with the indian summers we've had recently you could be harvesting well in to October - especially if they're under glass - so don't be too quick to remove all the growth.
Start at the bottom and remove the leaves once the tomatoes are getting near full sized on that truss. But allow them to keep growing up with fresh leaves.