The "sort of" fine weather has continued over the last week. However, with the breeze predominantly from the east or north east it's meant we've had lots of cloud coming in off the cold North Sea. Some days this has cleared by lunchtime resulting in a sunny and warm afternoon but on other occasions it's persisted all day and it's been a bit on the chilly side.
Temperature & Rainfall Records 09 May - 08 June 2018 |
The one thing we haven't had is any decent rainfall so visits to the allotment involve lots of watering as well as trying to get beds dug over and planted up. So far this spring and early summer is turning out to be quite challenging on the allotment.
All our tomato seeds this year were sown on the 22 April, a little bit late even for us, but this was due to the cold start to spring. All our seeds germinated well and were soon potted on out of their seed trays. We had four varieties Sungold, Shirley, Tigerella and Red Robin. The first three varieties are all now moved on into their final growing positions and are looking just like I expect them to.
The final variety Red Robin has taken me a bit by surprise. Whilst the other three varieties grew on quickly in the greenhouse, Red Robin didn't make much progress at all and didn't look at all like it needed moving on into a larger pot. I had intended this variety to be grown on in pots in the greenhouse as a dwarf variety but clearly I didn't read the blurb in the seed catalogue so closely. It's supposed to have an excellent flavour even though it produces a mini tomato plant suitable for growing on a kitchen window sill.
Tomato Plants - Red Robin |
As you can see they're not yet much more than a few inches high but already starting to produce tiny flower buds. It's going to be interesting to see how big they finally grow and how many tomatoes they produce. I'll have to start reading the catalogue descriptions a bit more closely in future.
Your tomatoes have certainly caught up any lost ground. And as for mini varieties, I am planting out a single Totem at the school garden today. (I needed a small variety to fit into the only space available in the square foot planting scheme). It is flowering so it its time to move it to it's final position.
ReplyDeleteFrom pictures on web sites I reckon Red Robin only needs a 4 in pot. It will be interesting to see how many tomatoes it produces. Never tried Totem. Looking forward to updates on how it performs.
DeleteAwesome update thank you for sharing Martyn and blessing to you both
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