As you might recall, at the end of July, we planted tomato seedlings in pots inside our enclosed verandah.
At the time we were hoping to overcome problems with verticillium wilt and fruit fly in the garden. But we were never confident that the plants would actually ripen indoors. A couple of weeks ago we had large, bright green toms that appeared to have stagnated.
Then last week, amidst the overcast, cool Spring that we’re having in Sydney this year, we had two hot days – on Friday the outdoor temperature hit 34C.
Bingo! The tomatoes started ripening before our eyes! I took these photos a couple of days ago – the ones above and below are from the big Apollo plant near the window, which gets the most sun…
This tomato is in a container full of Grosse Lisse plants – a variety which fruits very heavily, and needs lots of support…
The Black Russian seeds that my friend Christine sent me are growing well and just starting to fruit…
A couple of weeks ago, we harvested one of the green Grosse Lisse toms and left it on a windowsill to see if it would ripen. It did! Hooray!
(As you can tell, we’re very excited about our tomatoes)
This morning, Pete harvested the ripe tomatoes – the bright red one and the small one are from the Apollo plant in the corner, and the other one is from the Grosse Lisse plant. We’ll let them ripen up a little more before eating…
If anyone is thinking about growing tomatoes indoors in pots, do give it a go! You’ll need a sunny aspect, an electric toothbrush to pollinate them, and some decent potting mix. The plants won’t produce nearly as much fruit as they would outside, but it’s certainly doable. And it’s been such a joy to watch them grow from tiny seedlings to enormous productive plants in just thirteen weeks!
Addendum: I was having a discussion yesterday with Pete about why we have so many problems with fruit fly in our backyard. He believes that it’s because we live in a suburb with lots of established fruit trees – the neighbours on the left have fig, papaya and citrus trees, and the folks on the right grow mangoes. As we’re unwilling to use pesticides or tomato dust, it makes it very difficult to grow uninfested fruit. Thank goodness for the enclosed verandah!
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 