I have grown sweet million for the last couple of years in a cold greenhouse in the north of the country and have found them to be the best small tomato - lovely and sweet and quite a heavy cropper even last summer when other varieties were very disappointing including Gardeners Delight. I also grew a variety called 'Sparta' which was recommended by Pippa it also performed reasonably well and I will give it another try this year. Would certainly recommend you try Sweet Million.
If you are using growbags for your tomatoes ignore the instructions to cut holes out.Instead, shoogle the contents to loosen the compost and then cut the bag in half across the middle.Stand each end up like a bucket and plant one plant in each.The plants will develop a much better root system and you will have a much bigger crop.I always have great success with this method.I also use nettle feed.It stinks but the plants love it!
Surprised to read all your comments about gardeners delight. I grew it for the first time outside last year and got lovely sweet tomatoes in abundance. no blight or any other problems but did use tomato-planters and tomato growbags so maybe this helped? last tomatoes picked in november for green tomato chutney will be growing twice as many this year!
i have sown lemon tree, christmas grapes, banana cream and vintage wine heritage tomatoes for the past couple of years and they produce the most puny looking plants, not as cold weather resistant as other non-heritage varieties and with much poorer tasting fruit, they are only grown for a talking point in my garden. the best yields i ever got were pomodorino.
I haven't tried heritage varieties but I grew Gardeners Delight again this year - have done for several years and I was disappointed with them. They were tasteless and very small. I was planning on growing something different next year like Black Russian.
OK so here we are five years on and if 2007 was a bad year what about this one.
I grew 7 heritage varieties and 3 standard F1 varieties in a cold greenhouse, Green zebra and Amish paste produced less than a kg each, this is the second year I have tried them and the last.
The best yield I had was from one of the standard varieties at just over 6KGs however the next four best weights were from Mortgage lifter, Brandy wine, Black from tula and Paul Robeson all heritage varieties which produced between 5.5 and 6KGS. the remaining standard varieties (six plants in all ) only produced between three and four KGs each which is about 1 KG down on last year, I also grew one F1 cherry in the greenhouse which only produced just over 2KGs again 1KG down on last year, The best tasting for me was the Mortgage lifter which at 800Gms also produced the largest tomato, this was followed closely by the Brandywine and the Black from Tula. The standard F1s tasted OK but lacked any sweetness which may be due to the lack of sun. I always grow a mixture of F1s and heritage varieties and this is the first time the heritage varieties have done better that the F1s.
In the open garden I grew Gardeners delight, Tigerella. and Marmande, they were a waste of time due to blight and splitting
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Tom
OK so here we are five years on and if 2007 was a bad year what about this one.
I grew 7 heritage varieties and 3 standard F1 varieties in a cold greenhouse, Green zebra and Amish paste produced less than a kg each, this is the second year I have tried them and the last.
The best yield I had was from one of the standard varieties at just over 6KGs however the next four best weights were from Mortgage lifter, Brandy wine, Black from tula and Paul Robeson all heritage varieties which produced between 5.5 and 6KGS. the remaining standard varieties (six plants in all ) only produced between three and four KGs each which is about 1 KG down on last year, I also grew one F1 cherry in the greenhouse which only produced just over 2KGs again 1KG down on last year, The best tasting for me was the Mortgage lifter which at 800Gms also produced the largest tomato, this was followed closely by the Brandywine and the Black from Tula. The standard F1s tasted OK but lacked any sweetness which may be due to the lack of sun. I always grow a mixture of F1s and heritage varieties and this is the first time the heritage varieties have done better that the F1s.
In the open garden I grew Gardeners delight, Tigerella. and Marmande, they were a waste of time due to blight and splitting