The first seeds of the tomato crop were sown back in January, which now seems along time ago. There is a tremendous amount of work that goes into the crop even before we have harvested one tomato. Last Friday we picked the first tray of Shady Lady red slicers, we used them one the burgers at the Solstice party. We also picked the first few baskets of cherry tomatoes which we sent to the market. We hope to be able to pick enough cherry tomatoes for your boxes next week or the week after. the crop is a little later than normal this year because we did not prune it. When we prune the young plants we remove all the side shoots up to the first flower truss. This concentrates the plants energy into that fruit and it matures earlier. The pruning takes time we did not have in May. By not pruning the crop is a little later but we will pick it for longer and have a bigger overall harvest.
This week we hope to be able to start the planting of the final batch of tomatoes. These will start picking in September and hopefully go on into November when we get the first frost. In this batch there are more Shady Lady and Roma Types as they do better than the heirlooms here late in the season. The crop looks very good… Nigel