Tomatoes and Cucumbers 2020 - How are yours doing?

[Defenbaker]

It's that time of year when keen tomato growers are eagerly awaiting their first ripe tomatoes, so I thought it might be interesting to have a thread where people can discuss what varieties they are growing, which ones are doing well (or not so well) and announce the all important first ripe tomato of the season. ☺

I am growing two varieties of toms this year - Gardeners Delight and Balconi Yellow. Most plants are in our glasshouse, but I have a few outside as well. All plants are doing well, and have green fruits, but none have begun to change colour yet. We're on the south coast and normally get ripe toms in early July, so hopefully not long to wait now.

I am growing Marketmore cucumbers outside. The plants are doing well - one has 10 cues growing on it. 😊 I've never grown them successfully before (one year I lost plants to late frost, another the seedlings got fried in an early heatwave), so I'm hoping the cues taste good. I've heard some home grown cues can taste bitter, depending on pollination issues, so I'm just hoping this outdoor variety will be edible.

So, how are your crops progressing?

I wouldn't expect tomatoes before August except possibly a few in late July - I'm in Yorkshire at 400ft above sea level.

Cucumbers aren't doing as well as normal - I lost two seedlings because of cold, so have only one plant in flower at the moment. I shall have to wait for the seedlings to catch up.

In my case, they're all terribly. Tomato plug plants from a very well-known supplier arrived half-dead and never recovered and the Marketmore cucumbers I'd grown from seed were eaten by slugs. So much for self-sufficiency, sob.

tomatoes very good, all leafy with good flowers, far too many though as seed sowing too successful. I ended up leaving loads out on the street for other people.

Cucumbers - only two plants made it through, one has died, the other healthy leaves and growth but not much cue action yet. Hopeful. In previous years we have only had two or so fruit so almost didnt bother this year.

Tomatoes (Alicante) going well both outside and in a greenhouse, though I lost a lot to a frost in early May. Greenhouse one's just starting to colour up, outdoors are about 2 weeks behind.
Cucumbers have been a nightmare, 3 x they have germinated and then died off. Currently have a Marketer cucumber plant in GH that is bearing a dozen of so small fruit.

I just have tomatoes and they are all outdoors. I have Roma and Moneymaker and they are growing well, with lots of leaves and flowers and a few green tomatoes so far. However, the wind is taking its toll a bit over the last couple of days though they are well staked. I'm having to water them quite a lot too.

@MereDintofPandiculation Gardening at high altitude in Yorkshire must be pretty challenging. Sounds like your season is around 3 weeks later than ours, down south. Guess we're pretty lucky down here.

@ComeBackIntoTheGardenMaud Oh, that's a shame about the plug plants. I've heard similar stories from others - post delays and poor packing have caused many problems. I raise mine from seed on a sunny window sill. I find they germinate easily, and like @ChristopherTracy I had plenty of spares to give away. As for the cues, mine are in raised planters outside, and I've not had any slug problems so far, but I did lose a couple of plants to cold nights in May - I thought they'd survive as they had covers on and it was above freezing, but they died anyway.

@Ifailed - looks like you might win the prize for first ripe tomatoes then. ☺ Curious - whereabouts are you?

@pandora206 We had gusts of 45mph here yesterday, which blew over a large jasmin plant we have in a container. It's a bit top heavy anyway, so I might give it a trim soon.

My tomatoes are all in flower with a few small tomatoes growing. Went for all cherry tomatoes this year. Have 2 cucumber plants in the greenhouse that have just started growing. Not grown cucumbers before so does anyone have any tips. How do you support them in the greenhouse. Watched some videos after getting them and didn’t realise how massive they get

@Defenbaker
Kent. A very windy part.

Cucumbers doing great in greenhouse (Telepathy F1) already had about 10 from three plants so far with more still growing. Tomatoes not so good in the greenhouse. Got leaf curl and not looking too happy. Still got plenty of tomatoes on them though, and I understand they won't be affected because of the leaves. I'm growing G. Del., Red Cherry and Tigrella.

A great tip to get some more plants (from one of the tv experts, not me) - when pinching out the side shoots, put them in compost and they'll develop roots and become plants. I've got 9 extra plants this way. These are outside in my raised bed and are lovely healthy plants - better than the originals.

No fruit on mine yet. Very slow. I'm wondering if I need to move them.

How do you support them in the greenhouse.
My greenhouse came as a kit with aluminium supports and plastic windows. Luckily there are spare holes in the pieces of aluminium so I make a frame work of wires and train the cucumber plant along them by tying them in loosely and encouraging the tendrils to wrap onto the wire. There are usually multiple shoots so I try and get them to grow up in a fan shape, and will remove ones that are likely to cause over-crowding, you need a decent airflow to discourage mildew.

First tom flowers arrived last week on plant 1. Next 4 look promising. Last plant looking very uninspiring.
Outside plants, from seeds planted by the kids. Just one tomato per child would do my two!
Mum, 200 miles S of me, has a black tomato growing. Shes not sure how she knows its ripe?!

Well hello my fellow saladists!

Gardener's Delight, Moneymaker, Maskotka (free packet when rejoining RHS), a mystery cherry tom left free to a good home outside someone's house, Yellow Stuffer, Iraqi Heart-Shaped and Lister's Perfection. The last three are heritage varieties and I'm not entirely sure which is which, as they're from seed after I had kept a couple of the last fruit on some kitchen roll to dry out, and I didn't mark which was which. Of all of them, the maskotkas are most advanced with a couple of low trusses each, and the cherry tom has its first truss now too.

I only have one cucumber, it's also a heritage variety so I'll be able to save seed. Early Fortune. Still very small but has flowers.

Apparently there is a world shortage of tomato feed. What are you all using? I have a nettle patch which I might harvest for a 'tea' but it takes a couple of weeks I think.

Oh and they're all in an unheated greenhouse, apart from one each of Moneymaker, Gardener's Delight and Yellow Stuffer which are in builder's buckets beside the south face of the greenhouse with canes. I have 5 toms in buckets inside the the greenhouse, 3 in large terracotta pots, then another 8 planted in the ground inside the GH. All have strings for support, tent pegged in by their base and attached to the greenhouse frame at the top.

So far the ones in the ground seem to be lagging behind the pots, but I wonder if that's because they're not root restricted, so they're merrily off searching for water rather than putting top growth on. I hear on GQT about it being good to have them slightly under stress. But not sure how you balance that with infrequent watering causing blossom end rot (which I definitely had last year).

I have Roma, gardeners delight, and masktoka, but I muddled them all up and now have one as a bush which doesn't look quite right, one properly cordoned, and a few somewhere in between! A lot of leaf curling... Maybe due to temp fluctuating? But they are doing OK. Loads of flowers and most have fruit now growing.
Cucumbers are doing really well, one is almost ready, with several others growing. And the chilli plants look amazing!
All in a greenhouse, in w Scotland, my first time growing veg here!

Just a handful of flowers on mine, which are all outside. I would love a little tomato greenhouse.

I decided to try growing veg as a lockdown project so I’m completely new to this. I have four Sweet Millions cherry tomato plants in the (precious owner’s) greenhouse. They are growing tall and have flowers so I guess that’s ok! I pinched out side shoots on some as I read that I should but have left quite a few. One plant’s leaves have curled a lot which I think means it was over-watered? Anyway, it now seems happy enough with my benign neglect approach but no idea if that will lead to any tomatoes at the end of it.

I also grew nine Burpless cucumber plants from seeds, all of which have survived. Two are in the greenhouse and seven are outside. All appear to be flourishing although the greenhouse pair are roughly twice the size of their outdoor counterparts despite being planted together. There are quite a few teeny tiny cues appearing in both groups.

It’s been an enjoyable way of passing some of the lockdown time and good to make proper use of our greenhouse that had lain empty for years.

Sweet Millions is grown as a cordon, so you should be pinching out all the side shoots, otherwise the plant spends most of it's energy producing leaves, not fruit.

Shortage of tomato feed? Both my asda and wilkos had some so I'm just using that as per normal.

Tomato Maskotka and Cucumber Emilie both sown on the 2nd April in an incubator on a sunny windowsill. Once germinated moved to an unheated greenhouse and protected with fleece on frosty nights.

Both flourished. I planted out about half of each into the allotment at the start of last week and they went into a bit of shock, especially with the hot weather in the second half of the week. Recovering now though, the tomatoes have lost some of their baby fruit.

The tomatoes are covered in flowers and some fruit about the size of marbles. The cucumbers are doing really well too, some have 10 tiny fruit forming. The largest are about 2" long so far. I'm still eating the pickled cucumbers I made with my glut last year, might be doing the same again this summer with any luck.

I'm still using feed I bought last year so hadn't realised there was a shortage.

Novice gardener. Brand new greenhouse. GH now over crammed. Will learn for next year. Toms in the greenhouse and outside. Cordon tomato plants bearing quite a few toms, a few going red, no leaf curl but I definitely didn't prune or train properly. Will learn for next year. Cuke plants growing well from 4 plug plants bought at Waitrose. I have hopes for these. Will be buying taller canes at the weekend to stake the cukes. Courgettes in greenhouse growing well and we've eaten a couple of courgettes, couple more ripening now. Outside courgettes were looking good but some seem to have been nibbled by pesky rabbits - which was why I planted 3 courgette plants in the GH. Got dwarf beens and multiple chilli and pepper plants in the greenhouse and outside. The chillis are just beginning to flower. The beans are cropping. Next year I'll give everything more space.

When should chilli and pepper plants bear fruit?

I'm in Sussex just in from the coast and we've had a lot of sun this Spring and early summer. I water the GH plants every day or they dry out v quickly.

When should chilli and pepper plants bear fruit?

I'm in Kent, I'd expect them to fruit by the end of July in a GH, and August if outside, depending on weather of course.

loads of tomatos (still green though)
but cucumbers cucamelon) are yet to get going

@MereDintofPandiculation Gardening at high altitude in Yorkshire must be pretty challenging. That's not high altitude for Yorkshire. Most would regard us as being in the lowlands.

Our challenge is that we're in a local frost pocket, so in practice it means our growing season is a lot shorter than when I was in the SE. I have to remember that some things still have to be sown early, in what feels like mid winter, else they won't have time to fruit before the first frosts.

my chillis and sweet peppers are in the large cold frame but how do they pollinate in there (daft question?). What size pots should peppers eventually end up in?

I haven't grown them before - can you tell?

My aubergines have been attacked by whitefly stuff but are hanging on - lovely big plants as they were inside in the garden room and baked but only a couple of flowers. They are outside now and looking quite miffed about it.