Not bothering with cordon tomatoes this year

[Scarlet]

I agree with the general view on shop bought tomatoes; they are mostly tasteless on their own, but in a dish with other ingredients and flavours, they're okay. Most of the mid sized Hello Scarlet. I'm doing a couple more cucumbers; I posted on this subject fairly recently and got some great suggestions for ones to try. I can train those along the wires. At ground level I might try sweet potatoes again, as I've got an open border running end to end. I tried them once before, 2007 I think, with mixed results.

I've tried sweet potatoes and not had much luck so I would be interested in your progress.

[AllInContainers]

I've grown these for a couple of seasons and I love them( cheers VC!) but I don't think they are any lower maintenance than a tomato. They grow huge, 5-6ft and need staking and the sprawling branches need controlling. So very similar work to a tomato and they don't do as well outside.

I grew them last year in the front (south facing) windows, and they tried to take over the house. I staked them up, and aparantly that's a mistake. If you don't stake them they do fall over, but apparantly they then go bushy to compensate. Mine on the other hand were very tall and spindly and had to be cropped back from well over 6ft tall more than once with a poor quantity and quality of fruit too. Various sources have said that outright neglect is the key to doing well with them, so I'll be having one plant outdoors to see the difference from last year.

I don't mind taking a pair of sec's to them every few weeks, but I don't want anything that needs the molycoddling, sucker hunting and all the other time the toms demanded. I'll plant it, site it, and ignore it - but if it starts becoming a nightmare I'll bin it It's not like I'm going to be short of other fruit plants this year ....

[Scarlet]

Well, I tried a couple of spares outdoor last year, I must admit the weather wasn't helpful but they started to fruit too late in the season for a good crop. Weeks behind the GH plants.

[AllInContainers]

Ahh, I see My North facing garden isn't going to do them any favours then.

I've got seeds in to germinate at the moment, but I'll be sure to put them high on the hitlist if I can't find space for everything

[Scarlet]

Shame, they make great jam and are fab to eat fresh. What other fruit are you growing

[AllInContainers]

Not all these will fruit this year due to age of plants, but ...

Apple - Jonagold and James Grieve
Fig - Brown Turkey
Cherry - Sunburst
Medlar
Persimmon
Blueberries - Bluecrop, Dixi, Gold Traub, Spartan (one each) and three Pink Lemonade
Wonderberry (Huckleberry)
Golden Pearls (Golden Huckleberry)
Strawberries - Yellow, Black, Blue, Wild Alpine White, and Giant Red varieties (80 plants total)
Raspberries
Barberries
Checkerberries (three bushes)
Jostaberry
Elderberry
Blackcurrant
Blue Sausage Fruit (Decaisnea Fargesii)
Inca Berries .... subject to space
Kiwi and Passion Fruit have been abandoned

.... I think that's it, but I might have forgotten something and they're all getting crammed into this tiny space (chaos at the mo due to full reshuffle) with some novelty veggies, herbs, edible flowers and so on ...



It all fits on paper, honest .... but we all know reality doesn't always follow suit

[AllInContainers]

Dwarf Pomegranate, and Purple Filbert! Knew there was something else

[Penellype]

I couldn't be without my home grown tomatoes. I still have a whole freezer drawer full of them. The sungold are superb - I just plant them outside when the frost is over and leave them to it. I tie them to canes or posts as they grow and if they get too big and wild I nip the ends off the stems. I had literally hundreds of tomatoes off 4 plants grown outside last year, admittedly a very good year for tomatoes.

I also tried bush tomatoes (Totem and Bajaja) last year and found them far more trouble. The trusses were too heavy for the stems, so despite them being bushes I ended up having to stake them to keep them off the soil.