It has got to that time of year again when making decisions about what to grow.
My plan this year is to significantly reduce the number of cultivar’s, probably only around 10 different varieties. The main reason is that we’ve still got a lot of tomatoes left over from last year, we’re not eating anything like as many as we have in previous years, so it makes some degree of sense to grow fewer, although I will try to have a mix of sizes an colours, just because I like doing that and I will fit in the ones I really like or that I think are unique.
Another thing that seems to be happening (at least in the UK) is that the number of suppliers seems to be reducing with some of the major brands being taken over. This seems to be reducing the number of heritage cultivars available as the major suppliers seem to focus on F1 Hybrids. I know I’m cynical but it feels like they are forcing you to buy seeds from them in small quantities and high prices and, even worse, when you find a cultivar you like, it disappears in subsequent years.
This reduction of the number of suppliers has a secondary effect. The major suppliers support Affiliate programs. What that means (if you’re not aware) is that when you buy something having followed a link from my web page, I get paid a small commission. That made it (just about) worthwhile the effort of running the website (it didn’t pay for the site, that’s my hobby costs). However, as you can imagine, I only get a few people through my site (a few tens per day) and only a small number of those bother to click through to the major suppliers. Anyway, the result is that they don’t think my site is worthwhile supporting and they’ve cut me off. The result will actually simplify my work because I’ll only provide links through to the smaller more specialist suppliers.
I have found a new seed supplier this year Tomato Revolution. They seem to have a large number of cultivars that I haven’t seen before so I’ve ordered a couple and I’ll see how they go.
That’s it, I’ll post again in a few days when I’ve worked out how to get all the colours and sizes in to 10 varieties.