Spoilt for choice with Tomato 'Marmande'!
By balcony
9 comments
Spoilt for choice with Tomato ‘Marmande’!
I am rather spoilt for choice with Tomato ‘Marmande’ as I have 4 different plantings of Tomato ‘Marmande’; 3 plants on my balcony, in growbags, (which I’ve also begun harvesting 4th September), 1 in Gerry’s greenhouse on his allotment, a few at the top of my allotment, Plot 12A, & a few amongst the few plants of ’Gardener’s Delight’. Those I mistook for ’Gardener’s Delight’ when I planted them out in my plot were in fact ‘Marmande’! It wasn’t until the plants began to form fruit that I realized my mistake!
In this first photo you can see the 3 varieties I’ve been harvesting this week – I was rather spoilt for choice with all the different plantings I’d made of ‘Marmande’!
Tomatoes ’Gardener’s Delight’, ‘Marmande’, ‘Garden Pearl’ & ‘Marmande’:
I made a mistake when naming the tomatoes in this photo. The one named ‘Garden Pride’ on the photo should actually be ‘Garden Pearl’! An appropriate name as they do look like pinkish/red pearls!
As I was able to go down to the allotments this evening I took some more photos of the tomatoes I picked this evening.
For the first photo I arranged some of the tomatoes I harvested on Tuesday to show the difference between them. You will have noticed I have two rows of ‘Marmande’. The reason for that was to show the difference between the plant grown in the greenhouse (on the right) & the plants growing outside on my allotment (in the middle).
You may not be able to distinguish much from the photo but, as you might expect, the ones grown in the greenhouse were much smoother & rather more uniform, they are also much softer than the ones grown outside. I suspect that a taste test will reveal the GH ones are more insipid than the outdoors ones! The ones grown on the balcony are also rather more uniform & smoother than the ones from my plot. They have been equally exposed to the elements but the balcony offers a little more protection from wind, rain & sun. Perhaps the temps don’t swing as widely as on the allotment as well. They have been watered most days & fed with tomato fertilizer up to 3 times a week whereas the plants on the allotment were only fed once a week max.! Again a taste test may reveal them to be more insipid.
Here are a couple of photos taken at the beginning of September of the tomatoes grown on my allotment:
A week later:
Garden Pearl is a Cherry tomato with lots of pinkish/red fruit:
Tomatoes ’Gardener’s Delight’ showing the first fruits to be picked for this year
Here are a couple of photos of ‘Marmande’ on our balcony with a close up of some of the fruits:
A few weeks later (now ripening):
Tomatoes ‘Marmande’ ripening in the greenhouse on Gerry’s allotment:
Tomatoes ‘Marmande’ at the top of my plot now ripening:
As you may notice from the dates on the photos I started this blog some weeks ago but never got around to finishing it! I also have 2 more blogs in the “pipeline”! So I’m going to post this one now while I finish the other two off.
19 Sep, 2013
7 likes
Previous post: Fiery July 2013 on 58
Next post: Cambridge Botanical Gardens (Compost Corner) 4
Comments
I grew a few marmalade but gave them all away in error.I thought I'd kept some for myself.my mum's husband came round last night and told me how well his were doing!
But my Gardener's Delight, a small Cherry variety called Cerise and Big Red(F1 Beef tomato ) have been superb and, like yours have now been ripening for a few weeks!
19 Sep, 2013
never grown any of these but i like to eat them... if i get a chance next year may try to grow the MARMANDE tomatoes... because i like the taste of those the most....
thank you for blog...
from Jane!!!
19 Sep, 2013
Thanks everyone for your comments. :-))
Waddy, this is the first time I've grown them but they haven't impressed me enough to recommend them to anyone - not yet at least but I haven't eaten any of them yet. As you will have seen from the blog I have 4 kinds of tomatoes this year & 'Garden Pearl' is by far the smallest & I'm trying to eat as many as I can before I have to throw them away.
Paul, did you try & grow oranges? I far as I know MARMALADE only comes from oranges! LOL! :D) The TOMATOES are called 'MARMANDE'! I understand your confusion though as the first few photos when I went to put the names on them I could only remember their correct name by thinking of Marmalade!
It has turned out to be a bumper year for all kinds of fruit this year! The only thing that has really spoilt it for me was the Lettuces bolting! The Sweet Peppers & the Cucumbers haven't done very well this year either. Though the 3 weeks of hot weather we had in July helped them catch up!
Thank you, Jane, for your comments - on many of my blogs! I have read that there is a new & improved form of the tomato 'Marmande', perhaps you might like to give that one a go. You will have read about the BER problem I had with these toms but which didn't affect any of the other 3 kinds I've grown this year.
I bought a packet of 5 different varieties in the 99p shop in town. Even though I lost a lot of plants I still got many more than I can use! I even gave away a carrier bag full of them last Sunday at the Harvest Festival service we had at our church!
19 Sep, 2013
:) thank you....
20 Sep, 2013
No, I know Marmande tomatoes Balcony....grown them many times but it's my IPad...always changing my text and I don't always notice!!!
20 Sep, 2013
Be interesting when you do the taste test garden V greenhouse
20 Sep, 2013
The old saying The proof of the pudding is in the tasting, I suspect from what you are saying you need to taste your lovely Marmande then you can recommend or not them to us all, Looks like you have had a bumper year down on your allotment Well Done;0)
20 Sep, 2013
Just picked some more today from my plot, from the greenhouse & from the balcony! There are still a few more on each of the plants!
This variety seems to suffer from BER (Blossom End Rot) much more than the other 3 varieties I have growing on the allotments
I don't like the plants very much either as they have grown rather stunted, quite unlike any of the other varieties. They may be better off in a greenhouse than growing outdoors as that one plant looks much better than all the others of the same variety. Yet it is no higher than 5ft or so, it hasn't reached my height yet, (nor will it as I took out the growing tip a couple of weeks ago!), it has only 3 trusses with fruit, no better than the plants outside! Being an unheated greenhouse the interior temps don't vary greatly from those outside - except of course when the sun is blazing down on it! The plants inside really only benefit from the absence of wind & rain. They do however get much more water & fertilizer than the ones outside!
Paul, I was only kidding you! But I have to think of "marmalade" before the proper name 'Marmande' come to me! I'm not kidding either!
As I'm still eating mostly 'Garden Pearl(s)' I still haven't got around to doing a taste test!
23 Sep, 2013
Featured on
Recent posts by balcony
- Another look at the planters ...
21 Nov, 2024
- Pansies & Violas on the balcony
28 Oct, 2024
- Work on the balcony
11 Oct, 2024
- Huntingdon in Bloom wins at Anglia in Bloom Awards 2024
12 Sep, 2024
- Guerilla Gardening II
28 Aug, 2024
- End of July on the balcony
28 Jul, 2024
Members who like this blog
-
Gardening with friends since
14 Aug, 2008 -
Gardening with friends since
9 Mar, 2012 -
Gardening with friends since
10 Oct, 2008 -
Gardening with friends since
22 Jan, 2009 -
Gardening with friends since
9 Aug, 2009 -
Gardening with friends since
16 Jul, 2009 -
Gardening with friends since
12 Feb, 2009
Those MARMANDE tomatoes look as if they do really well...I might give them a try next year.
19 Sep, 2013