Tomatoes ‘Marmande’
By balcony
6 comments
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.
21 Jul, 2013
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Does this mean you'll get fewer toms, Balconey, or that the toms will fuse as well?
This will be well worth watching, either way.
Great blog, mate, by the way.
22 Jul, 2013
Yes very interesting Balc.....we grew Marmande a year or two ago and didn't have very good results as I remember, just a few large toms, but the cherry ones we were growing at the same time produced so many vines of tomatoes well into autumn. Like you our toms have been very late this year, full of flowers now though, so hopefully well have toms next month........
23 Jul, 2013
Thanks, Mouldy! I had to cut out that first tomato as well as a couple beside them as they had BER. The remaining ones are alright & that same plant now has 3 trusses of tomatoes! The lowest truss is coming on very well & I'm quite pleased with them!
All 3 plants are doing extremely well thanks to the hot July we had! Even the other two plants have two trusses filled up & flowers on a third! Even so I don't think I will let them grow much higher. I'm thinking of stopping them at the 4th truss otherwise there will be no ripe fruit before the colder weather of the autumn sets in. I doubt the 4th truss will get anywhere near ripe. In fact now that I think about it I'd probably do better in stopping them once the third truss sets fruit. These are big, beefsteak Toms & will need a lot of time to grow & ripen! This is the first time I've ever grown this type. I've grown Cherry & "normal" size tomatoes but never these big ones.
Down on the allotment I have all three sizes! They are mostly doing very well, too, again thanks to the hot July we had! :-))
Glad to hear about your experience with 'Marmande', Janey. There is bound to be a huge difference between the different types. I'm growing both kinds on the allotment, though only 'Marmande' on our balcony. Like you say the Cherry Toms produce 100s of small fruits & my 6 or 7 plants are smothered in flowers & fruit!
When I sowed the seeds my intention was to only grown Cherry Tomatoes 'Garden Pride' in my hanging baskets. Due to the very cold spring this year the plants were doing so badly, hardly more than seedlings at the end of May (all 5 varieties!), that I planted up the baskets with Petunias & took all the tomato seedling down to the allotment, to the GH. I planted them out in mid-June but they had made little progress even after a moth in the GH that I despaired of seeing any fruit this year. I decided to plant them out because I really, really don't like to throw plants away & because I thought: "who knows ...?" plants can sometimes respond even when we think there is no way forward for them. Now I'm looking forward to gathering lots of Toms in September-October! :-))
4 Aug, 2013
Perseverance pays off.
Well done, you!
5 Aug, 2013
Thanks, Mouldy! :-))
5 Aug, 2013
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You will grow them indoors next year ! The South of France is a very warm place in May.
22 Jul, 2013