Best Tomatoes

Black cherry tomatoes growing in my greenhouse

Grow the best tomatoes!

In the UK we are able to grow many fruit and vegetables but for some reason tomatoes are always the ones that have interested me most. I remember watering tomatoes when I lived at my parents I remember the smell of the tomato plants when I brushed up against them.

Tomatoes take up about half of my greenhouse in the summer and I grow a fair few tomato varieties. Some tomatoes were grown from seed, others from plugplants. My dad stills brings me some tomato seedlings in the spring.

Best tomatoes to grow - what's involved?

Submitted by dave on Mon, 07/26/2010 - 20:12

Which are the best tomatoes to grow? It's not as important as you think! Most modern hybrids will give a good crop and be resistant to disease. I have always liked shirley and alicante but more important is how you treat them!

Here are a couple of simple tips that can help you get some nice juicy tomatoes this year.

1) Plenty of food, always feed your tomatoes - this makes a huge difference. I personally like to use organic fertilisers but there are lots of options. Wilko's wondergrow alternative (I've forgetten the name) is cheap and very effective.

Butternut squash plants

Submitted by dave on Mon, 07/19/2010 - 13:29

All seems to be going well in the greenhouse and vegetable plot but one thing that has really shocked me are the butternut squash plants - we only have 4 but they are close to 5 floot long now! Every day or so I have to move the tendrils away from lettuces and carrots and try to convince them to grow the other way!

Does anyone know how much bigger they are going to get in terms of length?

We have started to see some flowers but no fruit yet - so I figure they have a while to go yet!

The excitement mounts!

Submitted by dave on Sat, 07/03/2010 - 22:53

I might be getting a bit ahead of myself but some of my Shirley tomatoes are starting to look a little riper than the others! They are red yet by any stretch of the imagination and it's only the beginning of July but here's to the first tomato of the year!

How many calories are there in a tomato?

How many calories in this bowl of tomatoes?

My wife does a lot of cooking with tomatoes, in particular a spicy pork and tomato casserole as the weather gets colder, however one of my favourite ways to enjoy them is sliced with a little olive oil (don't get a cheap olive oil – always a false economy!), balsamic vinegar some salt and some chopped basil (also from the greenhouse!). Team these with some bread for dipping and some buffalo mozzarella... wow I'm making myself hungry now!

Anyway for the health conscious tomato eater here is a bit of information on the calories in tomatoes:

Tomato Varieties

The best fruiting tomatoes

I'm planning on turning this section into a database of different types of tomatoes, but in the meantime here are a couple of easy to grow reliable types of tomatoes. You can't really go wrong with these!