Keep them coming

Bob explains how to keep your toms fruiting for longer

- Bob Flowerdew

OUR first tomatoes always taste so wonderful that each is treasured. But by now, especially where many plants are being grown, these will be producing more than most folk want to eat fresh. So what to do with the surplus – should you freeze, bottle, dry or pickle them, or make jam?

There are many possibilities, but the really important question you ought also to ask is how to keep your fresh tomatoes fruiting for as long as possible. So don’t let your plants spoil and exhaust themselves by overcropping huge numbers of tiny fruits, most of which may never swell or ripen.

Thin out fruits already set so that those left get bigger, sweeter and become more fleshy (with less skin and fewer pips per pound). Thinnings of unripe green tomatoes can be used in chutneys and other dishes, so these need not go to waste.