I sowed tomato seed today

I sowed tomato seed today, lots of it.  Because my parents have gone all grey nomad and headed north for what remains of the winter I am sowing seed for them as well.  As a result I’ve sown quite a few different varieties.  Their climate is a fair bit cooler than mine so the varieties that do best there aren’t always the same ones that do well for me.  Having said that there are some like Black Cherry & Rouge de Marmande that do well for both of us.

I am experimenting a bit this year with sowing timings.  I sowed some Tiny Tim seed during the 2nd week of May and they have grown slowly but steadily since.  Here they are on my daughters window sill.

I originally had eight seedlings but 4 died after being potted up.  This very rarely happens to me so it was a bit of a surprise.  I will be interested to see when these first fruit.  I will move then outside in a few weeks into a cold frame and hopefully they will enjoy having a bit more light.

I also sowed seed on the 30th June of both Rouge de Marmande and Black Krim, as an experiment as much as anything else.  Both have germinated but the seedlings are really, really leggy.  I’ve moved them to my daughters window sill which has a lot more light than the laundry where I kept them prior.  Hopefully they will now fill out a bit before I have to move them in to the cold frame outside.

Today I sowed a much larger range of varieties.   The kids helped so the process was quite messy.

I sowed my tomatoes in the middle of July last year and it worked well so that is what I’m doing again this year.  The varieties I sowed today are:

• Tommy Toe – small tomato, somewhere between an apricot and a cherry in size.
• Yellow Boy – Yellow Roma shaped tomato
• Beefsteak
• Burnley Bounty – Medium sized round slicing tomato
• Broad Ripple Currant – Yellow currant sized tomato
• KY1 – Short plants ideal for pot growing – producing medium sized slicing tomatoes
• College Challenge – Largish slicing tomatoes
• Black Cherry – As the name suggests
• Yugoslav – Big pinky red tomatoes – great for sauce
• Rouge de Marmande – Medium to large slicing tomatoes
• Black Krim – Medium to large slicing tomatoes

Of these pretty much all are tall indeterminate varieties with the exception of the KY1 and the Tiny Tim I mentioned earlier, both of which are destined for pots.  The KY1s are for my fathers greenhouse (although I’ll probably keep one), the Tiny Tims are for me.

Rouge de Marmande conveniently doesn’t grow quite as tall as the other varieties but still needs a lot of staking.

My dad will sow some more varieties when he returns in mid August but my planting stock will probably come from these although I might wait to choose the best looking plants before I decide exactly which ones.  I also plan to sow another punnet each of Black Krim & Rouge de Marmande in a fortnight to see how much difference sowing timings make.

So which varieties are you growing this year?