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.

Many supermarket tomatoes are hybrids, in which case it would not have bred true. Tomato seeds are cheap, and only need to be bought once. Buy recognised non-hybrid varieties with the properties you want, and then you can keep the seed and grow them again.

Yes, I know, and you might have seen on another thread I explained why I was growing these, and described the variation in the offspring. I was merely commenting that I too had thicker skinned tomatoes than I normally did, but that because of the origin I didn't know whether this was the variety (as in the variety of the offspring, named variety or otherwise) or the growing conditions.

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

Baz wrote:
I wonder how cherry toms would do in a greenhouse? Earlier than normal and
with softer skins?

I grow GD both in and outdoor, and I have to be honest, I've never noticed a
difference in the skin. Taste the same, and sometimes the outdoor ones even
beat the indoor for speed. But the indoor ones keep cropping for longer.

Sacha wrote in :

On 2011-09-15 17:46:15 +0100, Baz said:

Sacha wrote in
:

We grow Tumbler in hanging baskets for ourselves and for customers who
buy the baskets but we prefer 'real' tomatoes, on the whole. They're
grown in a greenhouse and I wouldn't say the skins are at all tough
but as we only grow them under glass, I have no comparison point.

Sasha,
When you say 'real' tomatoes, do they taste as good as "Gardeners Delight",
or are they just bigger and not so tasty?

I ask this because if I need to I can erect a greenhouse I have (in pieces
to erect as it is reclaimed)

If 'real' tomatoes are so tasty, I have a good reason or 'excuse' to take
up room for it.

If so which varieties for taste, not volume, would you suggest?

Thanks
Baz

Billit 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

Tough skin, I believe, indicates cold weather. Was your greenhouse subject
to (prolonged) late frosts? Outdoor tomatoes normally have tougher skins.

On Sep 14, 4:37*pm, wrote:
Billit 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

Tough skin, I believe, indicates cold weather. *Was your greenhouse subject
to (prolonged) late frosts? *Outdoor tomatoes normally have tougher skins.

Or drought.

That would explain it - we've had a cold summer.

No to frosts - I don't, of course, put out the tomatoes until after any danger of low temperatures in the greenhouse.