Tomatoes ‘Marmande’

Tomatoes ‘Marmande’

At last my Tomatoes ‘Marmande’ have begun flowering! As I’ve never grown beefsteak Toms before this is a new experience for me! I’ve grown bush, cherry & normal tomatoes but never these big ones!

My Tomato seedlings got off to a very bad start due to such a cold spring we had this year. I’d practically given up all hope of ever seeing any of my own tomatoes this year. However I did get around to planting 4 different varieties on the allotment I have, Plot 12A, even though I didn’t hold out much hope. Plants are after all such resilient things I thought “you never know!”.

The first couple of weeks they did practically nothing then I noticed they seemed to be growing a little. :-)) Then a few weeks later, coinciding with the Wimbledon Tennis Tournament in London on Monday 24th June, the weather suddenly started to warm up & the tomatoes soon responded as well! For the last few weeks they have had their first trusses of flowers. 😀

I brought 3 plants of ‘Marmande’ home from the greenhouse & put them in a growbag on my balcony.

Tomatoes ‘Marmande’ just planted out in growbag on balcony:

Same plants a week later:

This is the last photo I have at present from the 10th July:

I’m very pleased with the way they have grown & now they are flowering. Just that, without exception, the very first flower on each of the 9 or 10 plants I have, on the balcony & on the allotment as well as in the greenhouse, have come out as several flowers fused into one! I’d never seen this phenomenon before! I wonder if it is a characteristic of this particular variety? The rest of the flowers are the normal tomato flowers. Could it be a result of the cold spring? Here are some photos I’ve taken.

This is the very first fruit to form, as you can see it’s bigger than a normal tomato & rather deformed. The other tomatoes that have begun forming later are the normal round size for tomatoes.

I’ve just had another look at them, but too late to take photos, & that first tomato has tripled in size from when I took this photo. The other two plants, whose first flowers were also deformed, have produced fruits but the middle plant has a fruit smaller than the others on the same truss while the third plant has hardly formed any fruit at all & it’s probable that it won’t develop any further.

The flowers on the 2nd truss will no doubt open sometime this coming week. I think I will take out the growing tip when the plants have three trusses or I may not get any decent fruit after all.