October Tomato Harvest From a 2 m² Raised Bed 🍅 Still Harvesting from My Tiny Kitchen Garden!
Hello everyone and welcome back. Today I am focusing on picking the tomatoes that are still hanging on those lovely plants in the middle of October, which must be a surprise for the south of the UK. Hardly anyone has outdoor tomatoes at this point. We did wake up to a very cold morning though, only 7 degrees Celsius, so I am guessing the colder nights and possibly frost are on their way. It is a Saturday afternoon, the 17th of October, and there is a lot of ripe fruit to get in before the weather turns.
What is growing in a 2 m² raised bed
All of my outdoor tomatoes grow in one small section of a raised bed. I know it is 1 m deep because I remember building the beds with my husband, and the tomato side is more or less 2 m long. So on two square metres I have eight cherry tomato plants. I also had two beefsteak tomato plants, but those are already finished and the stems have gone.
In the same space I planted four cucumber plants of two different varieties, and along the edge there is a row of little pots with sweet pepper plants and, I think, one chilli pepper plant. It is a tiny space absolutely packed with summer crops, and I am amazed by how productive it has been.
The first signs of blight
Just when I said in my last video that there was no blight, I spotted the first signs this morning. The colder nights have started doing their work. Even so, the plants are still covered in fruit, so the plan is to pick everything that is ripe and freeze it. The orangey ones come in too, because they will finish ripening at home.
Whenever I cook anything that needs a tomato pasta sauce, I use these frozen cherry tomatoes instead of a ready made jar. I also have my own passata made from the bigger varieties I harvested earlier in the season, so nothing goes to waste.
Picking the tomatoes, and another beast of a cucumber
One stem alone had an unbelievable number of tomatoes on it. That is Rubylicious, an amazing variety. While I was picking I cut away a finished cucumber stem that was in the way, but left its string, because it was still holding up a side shoot that produced the cucumber growing on top of the trellis. I also found the cucumber I forgot to take off before our holiday, which is past saving, and noticed that quite a few weeds have crept into the bed, so there is a tidy up to come.
Reaching the fruit at the top meant pulling the verbena down and hoping nothing snapped. And then, hidden in the middle, there was another beast of a Femspot cucumber. I held it against my arm for scale and it was almost as long and as thick as the whole thing.
Clearing the dropped fruit
I collected a lot, but there was a lot of waste too. Many tomatoes dropped to the ground as I picked, because they were already soft and splitting. Most of those were from the very top, where they were hardest to reach, and with the continuous rain here they had taken on too much water. It was mostly the Sungolds that had been dropping, so I got in there with a bucket and gave the corner a proper tidy.
While I was down at ground level I checked on the purple sprouting broccoli planted in the corner, threw out a pepper plant that had never produced anything, and found suckers growing from the base of the Rubylicious plants. It is a very productive and delicious cherry tomato.
The verdict on three cherry tomato varieties
So that is my mid October harvest from a two square metre raised bed, grown outdoors and interplanted with cucumbers and peppers. I have another full bowl of ripe, good quality tomatoes, and the plants are not done yet. How much more I get will depend on the colder nights and how much the plants can take.
Of the three cherry varieties, Sweet Aperitif in the middle has been the least productive. Rubylicious, the red cherry, and Sungold, the orangey yellow one, have done exceptionally well and I can highly recommend both. There are still a few red tomatoes here and there, but I expect they are splitting, so I will clear them to keep the bed clean. I do not want any more fruit on the ground inviting the rat. I have not seen it since the last video, so I am hoping it was just passing through.
In this video
- Cherry tomatoes still ripening outdoors on 17 October after a 7 degree morning
- 8 cherry tomato plants on a 2 m² section of raised bed, 1 m deep and 2 m long
- 4 cucumbers and a row of sweet and chilli peppers in pots in the same space
- First signs of blight after the colder nights
- Freezing cherry tomatoes for pasta sauce and homemade passata
- Another giant Femspot cucumber, almost the size of my arm
- Clearing split and dropped tomatoes so they do not feed the rat
- Rubylicious and Sungold recommended, Sweet Aperitif the least productive
If you are interested in growing tomatoes outdoors, making the most of a small vegetable garden, or harvesting homegrown produce well into autumn, I hope you enjoyed this one. Tell me in the comments whether you are still picking tomatoes in October where you are, and which cherry varieties have done best for you. If you need new gloves for the season, my code AGA10 gives you 10% off at CoolJobSafety, and it also stacks with their current website sale. See you in the next video very soon, I promise!
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