Unexpected Tomato Crop!

Tuesday was another nice August day with some long sunny spells and pleasantly warm. We’ve only had 8.6mm (0.34") of rainfall so far this month which makes it the driest start to August I’ve recorded. Although with Met Office warnings out for heavy rain on Thursday night into Friday morning the dry spell might not last too long.

I have a sort of pecking order for the tomato plants I grow. The choicest plants go in our home greenhouse, the next best in the plot greenhouse and the remaining stragglers usually get thrown away. These stragglers used to get planted in the plot but as they suffered from blight every year we gave up attempting to grow them outdoors. This year we decided to give the odds and ends a chance outdoors on the plot.

At times this summer it didn’t look like a very good idea as the plants suffered through cool, dry and windy weather. They did manage to pick up after a couple of wet days and then it only seemed a matter of time before they were struck down by blight.

Meanwhile in both greenhouses our tomato plants have been watered and fed on a regular basis and have been protected from the worst of the weather. We’ve now, at long last, got some tomatoes ripening and as last year Sungold are the first. We had a first picking from the plot tomatoes on Tuesday and very surprisingly there were more Sungold ready on our outdoor plants than the ones in the greenhouse.

Sungold from outdoor plants 

Sungold from greenhouse plants 

To be fair there’s lots more fruit on the greenhouse plants but nevertheless our outdoor crop is rather a bonus. After the start they had I’m amazed the plants are still growing. Maybe I should have looked after them a bit better or have they benefited from a bit of neglect? 

Copyright: Original post from A Gardener's Weather Diary http://ossettweather.blogspot.co.uk/ author M Garrett