My daughter was always buying Piccolo toms @ciaranmcgrenera. I saved seed and have grown them for the last couple of years, and will do so again this year. Really good cropping from them. If you wait until you have a few fruits, you can just scrape out the seed and either do the thing of putting them in a little dish of water, followed by rinsing once they've developed a scum on the surface, and then drying out on some paper. Or - you can often just remove the seed and just let them dry before storing in a paper bag - envelopes are good for that, or you can make your own little bags from newspaper or similar. You'll get plenty, and they germinate and grow well.
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
I really don't know @ciaranmcgrenera. My daughter works for the Co op, and she regularly got them. I didn't really see the packaging unfortunately. I think most of them come from Portugal or similar. I very much doubt they'd be grown here. The other thing you can do to get more plants is to use the sideshoots that get snipped off as new plants. They grew very quickly. It's easy to see why they're a good commercial crop!
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
@Fairygirl I’d say they are grown in England. We grow them here in Ireland as a commercial crop. Most likely Italian at the moment, or at least the Italian version will be the best right now.
You may well be right @ciaranmcgrenera, but I just don't remember. They'd need a lot of extra heat for growing up here, so perhaps many parts of England would be fine, and you're a bit further south than me too if you're Ireland. I mostly grow mine undercover, but with these hotter, drier summers, and having extra plants germinating, I grew a couple outside last year and they did well. No doubt I'll be experimenting again this year !
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
I think most of the relevant comments have been made already. I would just add these. Soil grown rather than in pure compost may give more taste. The other important factor is night time temperature, as well as daytime. This was brought home to me some time ago now. When I did the RHS course in 2013-14 me and one of the others in the class were extolling the virtues of sungold as giving a real burst of flavour. The next year 2014, we both agreed though they were far less good and were discussing this in class. Our lecturer pointed out that in that year although we had warm days we had a succession of cold cloudless nights, so overall growing conditions are as important as the other factors already mentioned by others.
As everyone is talking about Sungold I thought I would mention Golden Sunrise as an option. Slightly bigger than the other, but better flavour. Also Tigerella is an easy to get seed, easy to grow and crops well if a bit later than some. My go to cherry tom is Black cherry Sunchocola my husband's favourite starts fruiting first and is last to finish. As for beans I go for French beans as they are the nicest picked fresh or frozen. Cucumbers have to be Beth Alpha, a mini that can be prolific, but also left on a little longer will make a good size. No one has mentioned Spring onions, these have to be Apache, a red variety.
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If you wait until you have a few fruits, you can just scrape out the seed and either do the thing of putting them in a little dish of water, followed by rinsing once they've developed a scum on the surface, and then drying out on some paper. Or - you can often just remove the seed and just let them dry before storing in a paper bag - envelopes are good for that, or you can make your own little bags from newspaper or similar. You'll get plenty, and they germinate and grow well.
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
The other thing you can do to get more plants is to use the sideshoots that get snipped off as new plants. They grew very quickly. It's easy to see why they're a good commercial crop!
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
They'd need a lot of extra heat for growing up here, so perhaps many parts of England would be fine, and you're a bit further south than me too if you're Ireland. I mostly grow mine undercover, but with these hotter, drier summers, and having extra plants germinating, I grew a couple outside last year and they did well. No doubt I'll be experimenting again this year !
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
Soil grown rather than in pure compost may give more taste. The other important factor is night time temperature, as well as daytime. This was brought home to me some time ago now. When I did the RHS course in 2013-14 me and one of the others in the class were extolling the virtues of sungold as giving a real burst of flavour. The next year 2014, we both agreed though they were far less good and were discussing this in class. Our lecturer pointed out that in that year although we had warm days we had a succession of cold cloudless nights, so overall growing conditions are as important as the other factors already mentioned by others.
As for beans I go for French beans as they are the nicest picked fresh or frozen.
Cucumbers have to be Beth Alpha, a mini that can be prolific, but also left on a little longer will make a good size.
No one has mentioned Spring onions, these have to be Apache, a red variety.