Kitchen Garden Forum

Is anyone else having problems with tomatoes taking a long time to ripen? With all the sun this year I expected some of my greenhouse Alicante to be red by now, but there's no sign! Does growing from seed rather than bought plants make any difference?

We've not had much sun since April up here and my tomatoes, sown the second week in April (due to being away) are only just ripening.

You could encourage them by putting a very ripe banana near them for the Methane it gives off to ripen them.

When did you sow them?

Sowed seed in mid March, planted out in greenhouse bed in early May.

Sowed bush tomatoes mid March, planted outdoors and have been picking ripe fruit at the rate of two or three a day for the past week despite the rain.

Sowed cordon ttomatoes early April, again planted outdoors and have just picked the first few Sungold tomatoes. The cherry ones like these and Gardeners Delight tend to ripen esrlier than the larger ones like Ferlne and Moneymaker which are still stubnornly green.

The majority of my tomatoes, apart from three plants in patio containers are planted against a south facing fence where they get the best sun thst's availsble.

Recent wet weather and cool temperatures are obviously not helping but I now always grow a few bush/tumbling tomatoes as their fruit generally ripen earlier, to extend the cropping season.