Well it’s been a long time coming, apologies for that, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, hope you all had a great Easter…told you it was a long time coming…anyway here are the results. Drum roll please!!!
And what a mixed bag of results I have for you. Unfortunately, we were hit by what I think was blight, but maybe not, so I had an emergency harvest of lots of green tomatoes.
But regardless of this I can happily give you some definitive results.
The seed grown plant, Ali, produced a fair crop but it has to be said that the grafted plant, Ele, produced a bumper crop.
I picked the first ripe fruits of each plant on 23rd August. Ele produced a tomato weighing in at 49g and Ali produced a tomato weighing 21g.
Ali’s smaller fruit was lovely and sweet. Ele’s larger fruit, I thought had less flavour. My husband described it as watery but I would of said more tart, less sweet.
1st fruits
A few ripe fruits here and there. I was very much enjoying the fresh flavours of a regular serving of tomatoes with mozzarella and basil infusion olive oil throughout the summer. Yum!!
fresh garden tomato salad
Sizes of fruits from both plants varied some smaller than others but neither plant really developing larger fruit than the other. I’ve used a pound coin token as the size reference in the photos.
tomato size comparison
Then, Ele started to develop larger fruit.
Ele’s larger one.
I was waiting for the fruit to ripen but, unfortunately, in mid September the plants were hit by what I believe was blight which wiped out my other tomato plants in other beds so I picked all the unaffected fruit off the plants. I believe I lost a third of the crop from each plant.
blighted crop
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blight stricken tomatoes
Based on the amount that was harvested, you can see that Ele was well on her way to producing a bumper crop as I harvested a bucket full of fruit opposed to Ali’s smaller harvest. I would estimate that Ele (grafted plant) produced 50% more fruit than Ali (seed grown plant).
salvaged crop
But to turn a bad situation into a positive I now know how easy it is to make green tomato chutney and how utterly yummy it is. I have included the recipe I used at the bottom of this post from a book called ‘Using the Plot’ by Paul Merrett, lent to me by a friend. Paul if you’re out there I’d love a copy!! (desperate plea over)
green tomato chutney
So to summarise, the grafted plant was a beast and next time I will plant them in deeper pots (I have since found out that this is recommended) and use stronger supports, but by golly they do produce a lot more fruit than the seed grown plants. There is a cost implication to consider, as the grafted plants would be more of an investment, but if I can grow fewer plants and get the same amount of fruit then for me that is a real bonus. I have an average house plot and by growing more productive plants in a smaller area I can then use the other space to grow a larger variety of vegetables.
And to put my money where my mouth is I, indeed, visited Huntingdon Garden and Leisure Centre over the Bank holiday weekend and purchased 2 grafted plants at £4.99 each. I’ve gone with a Beefsteak variety – F1 belriccio and a Plum variety – F1 giulietta. The labels say ‘produce up to 75% more fruit’ which in the right growing conditions I would believe.
newly purchased grafted tomato plants
I do have to confess I have also planted some seeds and plan to use them as a slower follow-on crop, if they take and survive by amateur gardening techniques. Well that’s the plan…I’ll keep you posted.
Just a quick thank you to Huntingdon Garden and Leisure Centre for giving me the opportunity to conduct this trial. I’m a convert to grafted and would recommend others to give them a go!!
Recipe as promised. (Hope Paul Merrett doesn’t mind me sharing it from his fab book ‘Using the Plot’)
green tomato chutney recipe
Frugal Happy Life 