Sacha wrote in :

On 2011-09-14 16:34:35 +0100, kay
said:


Billit;936520 Wrote:
Has anyone had the same trouble as I have this season I am talking
about the greenhouse tomatoes having a tougher skin than normal the
crop has been good except for the skins being tough

Mine have been quite tough. It hasn't worried me, but my son
complained that if he tried to bite the end off, the contents ejected
at high speed from the stalk end!

Since I've not grown this variety before (unknown random seedlings
from supermarket tom) I've no idea whetehr it's normal or not.
Presumably the parent wasn't thick skinned, since supermarket
tomatoes usually are not.

This prompted me to remember that, in my childhood, I recall my mother
skinning tomatoes by quartering them and running a knife between flesh
and skin - none of that dipping them in boiling water stuff. My
favourite picnic sandwiches of egg and tomato will always be
associated with that mental picture! I have no idea which variety
they were, except that, as we lived then in Guernsey, I expect they
were the then famous 'Guernsey Toms' ;-) But this makes me wonder
if 'old' varieties had these tougher skins that would allow such
treatment and if they didn't, why bother to skin them? And was that
because they were locally grown in glass houses in a British climate
(even the warmer one of the CIs) rather than the more exotic origins
of tomatoes sold now in supermarkets? This would have been in the
late 1950s, early 1960s.

Parhaps it's a matter of taste and convenience as I have no greenhouse as
such but there is nothing better in the tomato world than the outdoor
variety of cherry tomatoes IME. Gardeners Delight is popular.
They are small enough to eat whole or cut up in a salad, even fried or
juiced. The taste is out of this world.
True they have tough skins but both ends of the thing will be in the mouth
when they eject the contents.
I wonder how cherry toms would do in a greenhouse? Earlier than normal and
with softer skins?

Baz