Category Archives: Tomatoes

Anyone want any tomatoes?

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A bit thanks to Alan C who sent us up some great pictures of his harvest from his Corfe Mullen allotment down in Dorset. First off is his polytunnel that looks so abundant with growth even with this heatwave and lack of rain.

“The polytunnel is a bit messy as you can see (above) but the picture is after I had harvested so there will be plenty more. This is the side with cherry-type tomatoes (toddler), the plum ones are on the other side. You can just about see a couple of Midas chilli plants in pots at the back as well.”

He went on to say, “The extreme weather and ongoing drought hasn’t been good for some things, the peas and beans are struggling, and the potato crop was down with a lot
smaller spuds, but the squash don’t seem bothered.”


If you remember Alan has lots of tubs of potatoes on the go, which is a great idea. “I harvest twice a week, and this is today’s return (above) – over a kilo of spuds from the one tub I emptied (about 15 more tubs left to go) and nearly 1.5 kilos of tomatoes.  Plus, a slightly overgrown cucumber and a nice onion and beetroot.”

“We were already struggling to eat the tomatoes I picked last week so I now need to come up with some new recipes for them, we can give some away, but the neighbours don’t want any more and my daughter is allergic to them.”

Cheers for the pictures Alan and everything is looking brilliant down there and I imagine he’s put in a lot of hard work with everything, especially with watering.

Anyone on here know any good recipes for a glut of tomatoes? We’re thinking of a big pasta sauce and freeze it but it’s all about what space is available in the freezer isn’t it?

Edibles from north London

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We heard from Debby H in north London yesterday as she sent some great photographs of how her garden is doing. She wrote “We grew Capri Red pepper plants last year and tried to keep the plants going over the winter. I was convinced that at least 2 of the 3 plants had died, but they came alive again in June and are now bearing large peppers again!” Wow they look great Debby; they are some large peppers!

We love her first harvest of potatoes (above) and the picture of her Cherry tomatoes that “have gone wild” (below).

She also told us about the greengages she harvested this year, “This is a tiny fraction of the many kilos that our one tree has produced this year. We have never had much off it previously. It must be the heat!” Whatever it is they are doing brilliantly. Cheers Debby!

Reports from Bristol, SE23 and France

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We’re a bit behind here with posts at Weeds, the other week we received a message from Kit G5KIT, who said “We had 37 degrees C here in Bristol today. The only ones enjoying it are my chilli seedlings, which are now ready to put into containers as the roots are starting to come through the sides of the fibre pots.” Now 37 degrees that is hot, but he’s right, those chilli seedlings (above) are looking great!

Ours are in the ground after we took a bit of a frost risk earlier this year and we are getting a lot of growth and we are just starting to see the flowers appearing (above). Next to the chillies are onions grown from seed that need a bit of thinning out.

 

We’ve been having a good few reports from Spike from Morschen43 from a very sunny and hot Le Puy-en-Velay in France over the past few days. His garden is looking well bountiful now. We start with a rose (above) which he said was from the mountains called Rosa Centiflora (aka ‘Cabbage’ or ‘Provence’ rose). He was also saying that the rose can tolerate temperatures down to -15 degrees Celsius. Wow!

Here’s a selection of what’s growing in his garden now, some wonderful stuff here, a few different varieties of Tomato, Aubergine (Eggplant), Courgette (aka Zuchinni), green pepper and runner beans. We’ll have an update from Spike’s yard soon as there is so much there!

This post was written while listening to the latest Ross Allen Meltdown show on Soho Radio. Guest this week was Jimmy Lindsay who was in the great Cymande, we didn’t know that!

Vampire freaks and gardening

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A big thanks goes out to Spike from Morschen43 from a very sunny and hot Le Puy-en-Velay, France for keeping us regularly updated about his great garden in the mountains (here). The other day he sent us pictures including some of how his tomatoes are doing.

We were only saying to ourselves the other day that we think the feed we are using (all-purpose feed rather than a specific tomato feed) is making the leaves dark green and were wondering were we feeding them too much nitrogen? We’ve now got a couple of flower trusses starting to show on our plants so they may be okay but looking at Spike’s plants with some large size fruits growing we’re not so sure.

The plants are looking well happy and we love the classic companion planting of Marigolds above (there’s a nice bit about companion planting here). Spike was telling us when he bought the plants they included these varieties below which we’ve never heard of before and they sound well interesting:

The Beef Heart “A heritage variety with a most unusual heart shape fruit. Beefsteak type with excellent flavour and few seeds. Ripens to deep red.”
www.mammothonion.co.uk

Black Crimea “An old, heirloom variety AKA ‘Black Krim’, this sweet and spicy beefsteak tomato has a wonderful aroma and distinctive dark reddish-brown skin ideal for soups, slicing and sauces. Named after the peninsula, ‘Black Crimea’ each olive-shouldered fruit can weigh in at 350g each!”
www.rhsplants.co.uk

Andean horned “Tomato Bellandine, sometimes nicknamed Horn of the Andes, is an indeterminate cordon variety producing long, elegant plum-shaped fruits. Each tomato typically weighs 180 – 230 g and measures up to 18 cm long. The flesh is firm, very fleshy, and almost seedless, delivering an excellent sweet flavour with a rich aroma.”
www.simplyseed.co.uk

Alongside the pictures of the tomatoes he sent us a picture (below) of the vine growing across the house which they got off a neighbour of his grand parents in Troyes (Capital of the Champagne region). Great stuff Spike. Do keep updating us as we appreciate it here!

If you love a bit of rock/punk and a bit of reggae, ska, dub, metal, hard rock, tune into Spike’s Vampirefreaks radio show here. The shows are archived here.

North London potato update and more!

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Following on to our potato post the other day, here’s how Debby H‘s in north London are doing. As she said “They were supposed to be earlies, but I think we planted them too early as they took nearly two months to show any shoots. However, in the past week, they have shot up!” They are looking great, we always think if you can protect the plants from the frosts (under fleece or plastic), it’s worth getting them in early as you can (within reason of course).

She also sent us a picture of one of her tomatoes (above), which is looking well healthy. Also, a couple of pots of dwarf sunflowers and the two right at the bottom what we think are a phormium tenax, which is about to flower! Thanks for that Debby, do keep us updated as we do love those reports from the other side of the Thames.

Damping off and fungus gnats please stay away

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Thanks to Debby H who got in touch again to let us know that the cosmos seeds she put in a few days ago are now germinating (above). We will now experiment and start ours off, if we can find space on the windowsills. Cheers Debby, do keep us updated.

We can’t help being a bit paranoid with our chilli seeds (Prairie Fire Mini Bush Chilli Pepper and Lemon Drop Hot Citrus Pepper) below, we sowed on January 10th (post here). If you remember a few years ago we started some off and then we lost most of them to the dreaded damping off.

So, this year we spent a bit more on seed compost and took the lid off the propagator as soon as the seeds germinated. We’ve now moved them to the kitchen windowsill and keep checking the compost so we’re not overwatering them but they don’t seem to have grown much since January 30th (here). Have we just got a case of DOP (damping off paranoia)?

The moneymaker tomato seeds have germinated, and we’ve taken the plastic freezer bag off them. As long as those black fungus gnats stay away we should be alright! We’re taking advice from Gardener’s World: “Control them by allowing soil to dry out between waterings, using yellow sticky traps, and placing sand on the soil surface.

We had joy, we had fun, we had a season in the sun

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Last weekend we returned from a week away visiting some great East Sussex locations such as Camber Sands, Eastbourne and Brighton. Weather weren’t too bad (a bit of rain in the morning but usually sunny in the afternoon) but it has seemed to have changed when we got back home. Everything in the garden is now winding down, the tomatoes have their last fruit on them, the cosmos are still going (more on those later) and the giant sunflower (from seed bought off ebay) is doing great, following the sun as usual (more on that here).

We brought in the houseplants that were having a holiday outside, a chilli in a pot which will hopefully survive the winter and be back outside in the garden as they are technically perennials and even a couple of the pelargoniums taken from cuttings from the ones at the local train station. Why not? It’s nice to have a bit of the outside indoors.

Our north London correspondent Debby H has suggested we should get a page together of how people’s cosmos did this year and have a bit of a gallery going on and we think it’s a great idea. If the slugs got at your seedlings earlier on, don’t worry we will repeat it next year but any pictures of your cosmos to one deck pete (at) gee mail dot com please.

Also a massive shout and thanks to Jon Harris from the excellent multi-genre music  show called Coughing Pigeon on Brum Radio here. On the 1st August show they played Madtone Safety Council V BiggaBush‘s Lock your bike at 01.15. The show continues in the usual unusual way with all sorts of great stuff from the dubby to this wonderful tune from Christie Laume called Rouge Rouge, wonderful stuff indeed.

 

As it says on the website “You should approach every Coughing Pigeon show with a degree of both certainty and curiosity about what you will hear. Household names feature alongside the relatively unknown in a quest to create a unique listening experience” and they are right!

Seen in the garden this morning

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Morning! While we were giving the garden a comfrey feed this morning we noticed that the Thompson & Morgan‘s Black Moon tomatoes are doing well (above). There’s a little bit of green in the underneath of the fruit but they are mainly black on the top and look great.

And on the poppy tip (from the anarchically sown “thrown them anywhere” method) here’s a couple of nice ones that have sprung up this morning. Poppies are well worth it!

Also we may have news about our cosmos but they are so planted so close to some love in a mist we’re a bit confused, more on those soon.

Closer to home AKA fish food, courgettes and tomatoes

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Things are looking great in the garden, the late sown Courgette/Zucchini plants are flowering and here’s one of them with a little fruit showing on the left hand side (above). In the picture is also some sort of wild geranium/pelargonium that came out of a wild flower seed mix we flung around the area beside it.

There are a couple of fruits starting to ripen on the very early sown tomato (above) we put in a broken food recycling bin that is up near the house. And (below) an ebay purchase (of £11) of fish food for the goldfish in the pond (50p for size comparison). Reckon this’ll last until the end of the decade! Does fish food have a “use by” date? Another silly question put to you by Weeds up to me knees.

Have a good gardening week and “may the comfrey liquid, bees and weather by with you” as they say on GQT.

Local news

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Thanks to Penny Golightly, here’s news of a great little plant mart in Lee next Saturday May 17th from 2-4 p.m. outside 2-6 Micheldever Road, Lee SE12 8LX and the event is a fundraiser to get money to plant more trees in the area. There’ll be a wide range of plants for sale at a good price as well as lots of other stuff (cakes, books and CDs, cream teas and 2 botanical watercolour workshops at 2.30 and 3pm). Looks great! Cheers Penny!