Tomatoes need light, but not brilliant sunlight in order to grow. Once plants are grown and fruit has been produced they need warmth rather than direct sunlight to ripen. A former regular poster and tomato 'expert' Italophile restated this on here many times
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
That's right @Oldcompost The leaves use red and blue light to perform photosynthesis, using photons of light to convert to sugars to power the plant via special groups of cells in the leaves. The fruits have no such cells, so it makes no difference if the fruits are in the light or the dark, but heat helps chemicals within the fruit to ripen it from green to red
Billericay - Essex
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
Thanks Oc - I've had a love of physics and electronics since I was a child and the older I get the more it interests me. I rarely read fiction - my current summer read is a book about quantum gravitational theory... It doesn't appear in the summer best sellers list
Billericay - Essex
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
You live and you learn. Your post got me thinking, so I done some googling and found that plant fruits can photosynthesize especially when they're green as they do have some of the same cells as the leaves. However the purpose of fruit is to set seed for the next generation, so they contribute little energy to the plant. The fruits still don't need light to ripen though (but I'll dig a bit deeper into this one to try and find out why).
There are often interesting questions on this forum that lead me off in a completely different direction to find out more. You're never to old to learn!
Pete8: Physics and electronics to me is like football to my other half. My obsession is making the perfect compost, each year I produce about 750 litres of the stuff. All veg and food is put through a food processor. Gutweed and bladderwrack is collected and also bletched. The hen's poo is added, 2/3 year old leaf mould which is scraped from beneath the forest floor is twice sieved (like wonderful sponge). Already in tiny particles I finger crumble it over the winter (in the greenhouse at night with the radio on - very therapeutic). a 1/3 mix of Perlite is added in April for drainage and aeriation. In side by side trials this mixture produces 40% more fruit than John Innes 1/2/3 and the seedlings grow 30% faster. All this for tomato plants of which I've grown 32 varieties this year.
WOW - what fantastic compost. I'm ashamed of mine - I have have 3 x 1cu m bins. They're all almost full, but the contents is bone dry - almost no lawn clippings this year, just full of shredded plants, weeds and shredded prunings. I've been watering it - and following advice from others here have been adding my wee to the bins too, but until we get some rain, there's no lawn to mow, so no grass clippings. I suppose in time rain will come and grass will grow again.
Fingers crosses we all get a bountiful harvest of toms this year. All the best
Billericay - Essex
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
If you have 3 large bins and water regularly (plus turning) in this weather they should heat up like mad in this weather. Have you ever put a thermometer into the middle?
I haven't tried checking the temp, but as they're in full sun most of the day I'd guess it's very hot in there already, which I think is a big part of the problem. Today is the first day I've seen some proper cloud in weeks - it was lovely while it lasted, I even got some seriously rootbound cosmos planted out - something else to water now...
Billericay - Essex
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
Posts
Once plants are grown and fruit has been produced they need warmth rather than direct sunlight to ripen.
A former regular poster and tomato 'expert' Italophile restated this on here many times
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
The leaves use red and blue light to perform photosynthesis, using photons of light to convert to sugars to power the plant via special groups of cells in the leaves.
The fruits have no such cells, so it makes no difference if the fruits are in the light or the dark, but heat helps chemicals within the fruit to ripen it from green to red
Billericay - Essex
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
I rarely read fiction - my current summer read is a book about quantum gravitational theory... It doesn't appear in the summer best sellers list
Billericay - Essex
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
Your post got me thinking, so I done some googling and found that plant fruits can photosynthesize especially when they're green as they do have some of the same cells as the leaves. However the purpose of fruit is to set seed for the next generation, so they contribute little energy to the plant. The fruits still don't need light to ripen though (but I'll dig a bit deeper into this one to try and find out why).
There are often interesting questions on this forum that lead me off in a completely different direction to find out more.
You're never to old to learn!
Here's a little article that sheds some light
https://cvp.cce.cornell.edu/submission.php?id=91
Billericay - Essex
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
WOW - what fantastic compost.
I'm ashamed of mine - I have have 3 x 1cu m bins. They're all almost full, but the contents is bone dry - almost no lawn clippings this year, just full of shredded plants, weeds and shredded prunings.
I've been watering it - and following advice from others here have been adding my wee to the bins too, but until we get some rain, there's no lawn to mow, so no grass clippings. I suppose in time rain will come and grass will grow again.
Fingers crosses we all get a bountiful harvest of toms this year.
All the best
Billericay - Essex
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
Billericay - Essex
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.