The Tomatoes growing outdoors in pots ....

Photo: Home grown tomatoes pot grown.

My tomatoes are at last starting to ripen. I do not believe that the tomatoes that I am growing in pots in the garden have had as many sunny days or even warmth as last year, the weather at times is almost autumnal.

This week though I noticed the first couple of cherry tomatoes were turning red. Today I picked the first home-grown ripe tomato for this year. I was going to take a photo of it to add to this page, but it looked so tempting on the kitchen windowsill, that I ate it before I got my camera out. Oh well, better luck next time it tasted good, I hope the others are ready soon.

I have removed some of the tomato plants leaves to let the light get to the ripening fruits. Any new flowers I am removing as there is not much hope of the tomato fruits that will develop from them going on to produce full sized ripened tomatoes, I would prefer the plant to put its 'effort' into growing on the tomatoes that are already on the plant. However I have to say here that the advice that I have read on what is good practice in leaving or removing leaves and flowers varies depending on what you are reading.  What I have done is based very much on the weather here this summer and also an instinctive feeling that we will probably be getting an early autumn - weather wise.  Some of the article I have read say leave the leaves alone as they reduce the likely hood of the tomatoes splitting. Most of my tomatoes are in pots this year and even if it rains they still need some watering so I can control that to a certain extent. If in doubt check the BBC web-site or Gardener's World on-line, they are the absolute experts as they have usually trialed different approaches to growing fruit and vegetables.