We have done the same, can't grow sets but seed is not too bad. Lose a few but we pull them early and cut and freeze them. Most store Ok. But shallots seem to be the best idea! Hardly any rot in those!
Just picked some of the Kellogs. As you say they look amazing. I have never eaten such a tasteless tomato. Seek advice for next year not seed sellers descriptionj.
maybe they were named after Dr Kellog (not his brother the cornflake maker) after someone said "you can stuff that tasteless thing up your a..........................."
Has pretty much no flavour though. Better off with Roma for sauces or Marmande for a big tomato with bags of flavour IMHO
I need to try that one next year. Where did you source the seeds?
I saved some seed from a supermarket variety called Brioso. They seem to be easily available and produce nice trusses of medium sized tomatoes, they also tend to be the first to ripen. Well worth looking for.
Good advice, we have a massive crop of queens and beat the blight by removing the foliage in time. Unfortunately they are heavily scabbed. They got 7-6-17 when sowing that's all. Any ideas re the scabBlight is something of a nightmare. It thrives in warm, damp conditions and can spread tens of miles on the wind, so it's largely unavoidable. This is the first year in a long time that I've not had it to some degree here (so far), which I assume is down to the very dry weather. My potatoes always suffer first because they're outdoors, but it does eventually get to the tomatoes in the polytunnel too. Fortunately that's usually not until very near the end of the season when we're just trying to get the last few fruit to ripen.
The blight fungus actually requires a live host and from memory can't survive in any form (spores or "live" fungus) without one for more than a few days, so composting plants that have it really shouldn't be a problem. I've read suggestions that where potatoes are concerned, the larger problem is "volunteer" potatoes from previous years' crops that provide a host for the fungus over Winter and then spread it again when they sprout in the Spring. For that reason I've been removing all signs of volunteer plants this year.
Where potatoes are concerned, I think growing resistant varieties is probably the only real choice unless you just learn to live with it. Farmers have other options using chemical controls, but not ones that are available (nor even viable, really) to the rest of us. In the case of tomatoes growing under cover seems to be the best choice though there are blight-tolerant and blight-resistant varieties if that's not an option.
Watering when the air is still might help, as the fungus needs a period of time when the plant is wet to infect it, but all it takes is a rainy and windy summer day and whatever precautions you've taken may well be rendered useless
James
I had two apple trees stripped clean in a couple of days, during the drought, never saw this before, It seems that when the word got around it was a free for all, both little and large?I'm afraid not. It's not a problem I've ever had. The biggest problem this year with the maincrop potatoes is the blackbirds keep digging them up! Because of the lack of rain I think under the foliage is I think the only place that is likely to be moist enough for beetles and other stuff that they eat to live. So having put a load of compost on the plants to earth them up, the blackbirds have spent weeks digging in it for food and unearthing the potatoes in the process
James
