Too many tomato plants!

If all else fails we can live on spaghetti bolognaise, tomato soup and tomato on toast (if the supply of yeast and flour doesn’t run out!).

Our local garden centre offered five different tomato plants for the price of three so hoping they don’t all fruit at once. We have big ones, small ones and some as big as your head (slight exaggeration there!).

What do the Americans mean by canning?

@Sussexborn. Lots of videos about canning on YouTube. Basically it is preserving fruit and vegetables (in jars - no idea why the word canning is used) by sterilising them by boiling then excluding air.

Esspee Americans have cans not tins!

You can freeze tomatoes to make sauce or soup at a later date. The skins come off easily then too. I spent ages skinning them before freezing then found that out!

I am surprised no-one has taken you off on your offer. There has been a shortage of tomato plants in this area and I really struggled to find some. Did have some planted from seed but took ages to germinate but now coming along.

I wish you lived near me, witzend. I've been waiting 5 weeks for some tomato plants I ordered online.

Like Callistemon, I freeze them whole until I want to make soup or a sauce. That's after I've made pots and pots of ratatouille and passata for the freezer.

Can never have too many tomatoes.

From experience, some people just cannot be arsed to look after veggie plants! I had loads to give away, several varieties of beans, peas, tomatoes, beetroot etc but no one wanted them! They will all be too happy to accept the veggies as a giveaway though once harvesting starts; not this time folks! I've spent quite a lot of money on seed, compost, feed etc so naturally I need to recover some of the original investment. That's not unreasonable is it?

The same as Kathsue, I've been waiting weeks and weeks for some plants.

I'm desperate for some lovely home grown toms.

Oh Witzend I wish you were near to me. I run a charity plant stall outside my gate and tomato plants sell so quickly. Thanks to local friends generosity I have sold hundreds of plants since Easter and raised over £700 for our local Hospice.

I make sauces too and freeze them if I'm in the mood.

We seem to have tomato plants growing where other seedlings should be sprouting but I have no idea which kind they are. They will have to take their chances outside.

No-one goes past our house and the neighbours seem to have enough too.

H1954 we have never had so many failures with seeds as this year and we don't know why. They do cost quite a bit.
It's cheaper to buy veg from the supermarket.

But yes, we have tomatoes!

I thought I’d found homes for nearly all of mine. Then DD2 gave me two pots of breakfast tomatoes - with three in each little pot. They look so appealing I have to find room for them. I have two proper growbags with three in each - and then the others are sneaked in around the back of borders. Provided I remember to pinch out the side shoots they do quite well in flower beds!

Then there’s the beans. An elderly gent stopped to look at next-doors gate plant stall so I gave him some. Anyone want one or two climbing French beans or dwarf broad beans?

Oh yes, French beans please, NfkD! I forgot to order any.

Must say I did think someone out of the 32 houses on our WhatsApp group might like them!

A Dd would have had them like a shot, but she lives an hour and a half’s drive away, and in any case was finally able to get some from a neighbour’s surplus.

Callistemon; do you jut freeze them whole?

Yes, wash first then sometimes I take the little core out with a sharp knife first. In fact, they peel more easily after freezing if you do that.

I planted 3 different varieties of tomato plants in a grow bag specifically for tomatoes. They were doing brilliantly; nice and tall and with the first little yellow flowers just appearing. I've tended them like babies during lockdown. Went into the greenhouse yesterday to water them and the other plants, but had to go back to the outside tap to refill the watering can. Almost as soon as my back was turned, a gust of wind caught the greenhouse door and slammed it shut, which just caught the tray of dahlia tubers sitting on the next shelf and tipped them down onto the tomato plants.

No tomatoes have survived because they were completely snapped off by the weight of the dahlia tray and the dahlia tubers have had their green shoots snapped off too.

I think it’d be cheaper for you to plant seeds now Callistemon!

Oh, Chewbacca thats’s awful! Your babies!!!

Oh, no, Chewbacca!
How utterly sickening and upsetting for you, especially after all the ‘baby-nurturing’ you’ve done.
Having done the same with my ‘babies’ I think I’d have cried!
???

I think I'll plant some seeds, and if some plants turn up it'll be a bonus.

Maybee once I discovered how easy tomatoes peel from frozen, if I need to peel fresh ones I freeze them first! A dunk in really hot water on a slotted spoon and the skins ping apart. Wonderful!

I too had a surplus of tomato plants. I left some on of my friends doorsteps and they were thrilled. I get updates from one of them about how they are doing in her garden. I have 3 in the greenhouse and the remainder i just planted in amongst
my flower beds. They seem to be doing well. I shall freeze or give away to friends and family if i have too many, obviously doing SD.

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Oh Chewbacca I would have wept! I too have been nurturing seedlings in my greenhouse, now have four tomato plants outside and four others which I need to find space for. So, do people find that tomato plants manage ok in flower beds, as long as well watered, pinched out etc? I have been fretting about enough big pots/sunny places, so planting in among other things may be the answer? This does seem to be the year for tomato plants, there are lots of people here putting surplus plants out for collection, maybe it is because we all have time during lockdown to grow them.