Egypt4u

Every spring and through the summer for really as long as I can remember I've grown, at a minimum, one up to three tomato plants.

I almost always will grow a Sweet 100 - prolific cherry tomato and one or two other varieties that I can find that mature early. It usually depends on what I can find and these last couple of years are dependent on what is brought into the stores.

Just was up at the nursery and got my Sweet 100 BUT for the first time they've brought in lots of Heirloom varieties.

I got a "BONNIE BEST" which matures at 60 - 62 days and is considered a British Heirloom variety. I haven't seen this tomato plant since I was a child as it was super popular way back then and a regular we used to plant in our gardens. Is Bonnie Best a common variety grown now in the UK? And does it produce nice flavourful tomatoes?

One year quite a few years ago I bought a "Yellow Boy" tomato plant. It grew into an enormous tomato plant and I don't think I've ever seen a plant produce that many small cherry tomato sized pear shaped tomatoes however there was not 1 iota of taste to them at all. Production was over the top but the taste definitely lagged big time.

The second one I bought apparently hails from Czechoslovakia and is called "Stupice." It also matures around 60 days producing a 2 to 3" tomato. The plant actually has a first bract of flower buds (very tiny) on it. What was really most remarkable about it was the leaves looked almost like potato leaves. Not nearly the ragged edges of other tomato plants.

Anybody grow a yearly tomato plant? What varieties please? (And IF these ones produce well given they're heirloom seeds I'm going to dry and keep some seeds. )

LLL, the reason they look like Potato leaves is that both are from the same family
Cant say I have heard of your heirloom varieties, most people in the UK tend to grow them under glass or polythene due to our weather and I would say the most common variety was 'Money Maker' and 'Ailsa Craig' both are good croppers. We do get small pot grown varieties such as 'Tom Thumb' and a few others that do OK outside providing the weather stays mild.

Half of mine are in, three rows. One row of giant beef tomato, one row of medium and one row of cherry, some of which will taste of tomato, some will taste like peaches. As its the years before seed I really dont know as the bees change them - - - - They are all protected from the wind with cut waterbottle rings. They have been sideshooted and most have tiny flowers. I would like to send for the Heritage seeds (you can buy a box of assorted seeds) but with no credit card I cant. The Royal Mail delivery here, recorded and traced , does not exist.

I will pretty much always got a good crop of cherry tomatoes and small variety early producing tomatoes. Beefsteak would never produce here unless it was a really unusually hot year. I put them against a hot fence where they get as much reflected sun as possible and shove manure or seaweed deep in the hole covered with soil so the roots grow down into the rotting stuff. You can almost see the tomatoes jump up when they reach it.

Often the varieties that come in here are Early boy, Early girl, Early something with the emphasis being on short season production.

I just remembered Bonnie Best name from years ago and given it said it was a "British Heirloom" I thought I'd ask if it was a popular one there.

There is a FB site, a native american woman who arranges all sorts of ancient seeds and travel, giving talks on the benefits of growing "proper" food. I was a member 4/5 years ago to get the newsletters.

I really don't want to have to save seeds every year cause after cross pollination you really never know what you're gonna get anyway especially with squash but I DO hate the thought that the Agricultural powers that be have gone to great lengths to produce plants that now produce sterile seeds.

Part of me thinks that getting green cellulose into my system is good and whether the seeds are viable or sterile, I'd hope, wouldn't matter but does it?

Are the GMO green plants etc. as good and proper for us as the original non-genetically messed with plants/veggies/fruits?

I used to grow beefsteak and lots of others down to Sweet 100 in the UK under glass, so when I got my garden in Luxor I took out a whole lot of Thompson and Morgan seeds.

I had the French Marmande which was hideous but recommended. Some Italian plum tomatoes smooth and oval, then the more normal kinds, but every kind of tiny ones that I could find, some round, some oval, in yellow red and striped............ mostly just one packet of each.

Knowing how fragile seedlings are in Luxor I told my head gardener to give the seeds to a grower on the West Bank who specialised in growing seedlings only. We paid 1LE for every ten baby plants ready for pricking out and well worth it, we had a lot.

I planted them outside and they thrived, we were picking upwards of 80kg of tomatoes a day!

The restaurants and hotels wanted them especially as they were all organically grown. However, as things go there was a dip in the tourist trade, so a lot were given away or went to market for a low price. The tinies however were very popular with my nieces and nephews who ate them like sweets and came back for more.

The family were in Saudi Arabia at the height of the season so I was making 50kg of salsa a day and freezing it down for later in the year. That may seem a lot, but we often feed 50-70 people on a Friday.

Sounds like we need to nomnate you as our Tomatoe growing guru
And feeding 70 people on a Friday

@MD on hearing your tomato story it brings to mind when I was young and in my prime in the day of the dinosaur. Here on the Island whilst we had grocery stores they only carried what was 'in season' so everybody did major canning as it was nothing new to have empty store shelves.

Tomatoes were a primary item to 'can' which meant the entire process of washing and sterilizing tall rectangular quart glass jars, putting down the boiling hot metal lid and tightening on the ring band.

I had to grow (and get a good crop) on at least 2 dozen tomato plants so I could 'can' my 300 quarts/yr to get through the winter hence I'd grow 3 dozen plants. I'd pick different varieties BUT they all had to be the variety of tomato that had the highest acid count. Beefsteak could NOT be canned as the tomatoes didn't have sufficient acid. The little tomatoes never made it to the canner as they were eaten by everybody as candy too.

Early girl, Star Fire were my two favourites but even at that I added salt and lemon juice to each jar prior to processing it (boiling water bath in a huge kettle for close to an hour) so nothing would spoil.

We didn't have secure electricity back in the day so freezing did happen but if the electricity went out nobody could open the freezer (and usually electrical outages happened in the bad weather of winter) as it was totally necessary to preserve the cold and keep everything frozen. You couldn't freeze ALL your winter food so canning was a mandatory.

Them were the days! UGH! BUT seeing the pantry lined up with row after row of canned tomatoes, fruits, jams, relishes and pickles sure looked lovely at the end of the season.

You girls certainly earned your stripes back in the good old days, makes you wonder how many of todays youngsters would even know where to begin.

My daughters would remember what I did and they sometimes comment on memories of seeing all the canning jars but I highly doubt they're really know where to start. The youngest did do a spate of jam making a few years ago but her efforts have not continued

Food did seem to be simpler back then too. I really don't cook or make food anymore like I used to.

Tomato Guru? I think not! This might amuse you.

I tried to get the tomato seeds in Egypt, but all the commercial growers told me that I would not be able to grow fancy tomatoes in the open in Luxor, they would have to be in polytunnels or glasshouses. I pointed out that I was currently growing them outside successfully with imported seed.

Now what were the varieties that I grew? Well, I gave the Head Gardener the bill from T&M with all the varieties names on......... and he lost it.

The specialist grower, sowed the seed and raised them beautifully - but did not identify the individual varieties, the plants were all mixed up and we weren't sure what they would be until they actually set fruit, so I have no idea of the names of most of the successful varieties.

Only in Egypt MD