crops

Trays of tomatoes… and strawberry corner

Today was spent potting up tomato seedlings (see below), and also moving some sluggish strawberry plants from the back garden to the front, where they will in theory get several hours of sun a day rather than just half an hour or so. The display of strawberry plants in the corner actually looks quite attractive in its own right, I think. Of course, the roofless greenhouse to their left (not seen in pic) is definitely NOT a thing of loveliness, but it does act as a convenient shelf for more long trays of strawberry plants. Who knows, I might actually end up picking a dozen strawberries a day at the height of the season, rather than six or so as I did last year. To pot up the strawberries into their respective containers, I used neat home-made compost – which should mean that they’ll be happy! I wish I could be self-sufficient in compost, because that’s easily my biggest expense as a container gardener. Back in March, I syphoned off a good amount of nearly-rotted compost from our Dalek into the hole next to it; six weeks later under its layer of old carpet/bathmat, it’s now ready to use but I need more!

How to sow tomato seeds easily… and how to protect seed trays from marauding cats

This week is the first week of spring in our household. One reason for designating this particular week as the official end of winter is the fact that we can now close our front door for the first time this year. Every year, in cold/wet weather, it expands (or the door frame shrinks – one or the other), making it impossible to shut. Luckily we have a second, inner door that also locks so it’s not a huge problem – just something of a nuisance.

The second event marking the official start of spring chez Mr & Mrs Beans is the planting of this year’s tomato seeds – Brandywine and Gardener’s Delight (which will be followed by Tumbling Tom, on order from a seller on eBay). Like any small seeds, tomato seeds are fiddly to plant. I’ve evolved a method of doing so, which involves emptying them into a bowl and using a moist finger to pick them up one at a time, and plonk them on the surface of the compost in the tray. (Your hands may already be moist anyway, from handling the compost.)

For the next week or two while the seeds germinate, the seed trays will sit on our dining table. Lest our cats decide that they make nifty litter boxes, I’ve covered them with wire cake trays. (You can’t be too careful when it comes to cats, I’ve realised.)

Have also planted six mouse melon seeds – should be interesting to see if they come up.

And now for something a little bit healthier

This little Brandywine beauty had been sitting on our kitchen windowsill for a couple of weeks, slowly ripening. We ate it on Sunday with our customary fry-up. Just the raw, meaty slices – no cooking required. There are still a few more Brandywines left, plus some cherry tomatoes. I shall convert most of the latter into a spaghetti bolognaise today. We had over three pounds of green tomatoes too, which Mr Beans made chutney from last week. This weekend I finally chopped down our tomato plants, distributed the compost on our roses and placed the actual plants in a sack. Kindly neighbour lady is going to take them to her allotment for burning (along with the trimmings from when I pruned said roses).

I am in two minds about whether to save some Brandywine seeds, as I did last year. I didn’t take care to separate the varieties of container tomatoes so there may have been some cross pollination, which could turn out to have interesting results next year! Think I’ll order some pure-bred seeds on eBay but maybe try growing some saved seeds as an experiment.

Tomatoes on a windowsill – a cautionary tale

The picture on the right shows what happens if you put your tomatoes on a sunny windowsill to ripen, and you let them touch the window rather than leaving a gap. You have been warned. Sadly, I ended up throwing this specimen, and three of its equally sad mates, away. Ideally, you want to set your ripening tomatoes at least an inch back from the actual window. Having said that, it’s nice to have actually had some sun. So far, September is proving to be more summery than June, July & August put together. And despite the windowsill mishap, we have been enjoying tomato salads for the last couple of weeks.

Tomatoes. One month late.

This groaning set of shelves, with cunningly placed plastic mug risers, would have graced our kitchen about a month ago, if we’d had a normal summer. But as everyone in Britain knows, this hasn’t been a normal summer. We’re only eating tomatoes at all this year because I’ve been obsessive when it comes to looking after them – cutting off the bottom leaves (this ensures that the growing fruits get more nutrients), putting them in the sunniest places possible (ha ha), and feeding them with comfrey tea every now and again. And because I take them indoors to ripen off the moment they even start to look as though they might go yellow.

What you see on the shelf (apart from two figs – also a month late) is pretty well all the tomato varieties I planted this year: Gardener’s Delight, Moneymaker, Mamande and Tumbling Tom. The only one that isn’t there is Brandywine. I do have some Brandywines coming along, but they’re not even ripe enough to pick yet. Fingers crossed that we have an Indian summer, otherwise Mr Beans will be making chutney out of them.

PS: The caravan parked outside isn’t ours. I don’t know why I felt I had to point that out.

At last, runner beans. But not tomatoes. Yet.

Today I picked our first roast dinner-for-two sized handful of runner beans. (I had picked four or five beans earlier this week, but they don’t count.) Obviously the lateness of the beans is down to our dreary summer, but actually looking back at last year’s posts, the beans aren’t that late – maybe a week or so, perhaps.

The same cannot be said of our tomatoes, none of which are ripe yet. This time last year we were picking Gardener’s Delights and hanging basket toms every single day. This year, there are a few Gardener’s Delights which look almost on the point of turning red, but none of them are actually edible yet. We do have hundreds of tiny green fruit though. My feeling is that all our tomatoes will ripen at once in mid-August, thus prompting a frantic session of cooking: freezer portions of tomato, onion and garlic pasta sauce on the one hand, and chutney on the other. Mr Beans makes fabulous chutney.

I’m glad I never bothered with courgettes this year. I think I will wait until the sunspot cycle does its thing and we’re back to sizzling summers again.

Tomato recovery after hailstorm

Last month’s hailstorm had a horrible effect on my tomato plants but they’re now doing nicely thank you, although due to the rubbish summer we’re having they are lagging behind somewhat. Plenty of flowers, but no fruit yet. On this exact day last year, I was picking the first of my hanging basket tomatoes, so that puts it into perspective. The tomatoes on the steps (see pic immediately below) are Moneymaker and Brandywine. The ones in the pic below are Gardener’s Delight and the basket just visible to the right of them has Tumbling Toms (even those are still just at the flower stage – it really is a late year). The dried straw-like husky things you can see in the top pic are the Green in Snow Oriental mustard seed pods I mentioned in the previous post.

Gardener’s Delight

Saving Green in Snow Oriental mustard seeds

Saving seeds appeals to my frugal tendencies (if the seeds on the right grow OK, then I’ll have saved myself £1.50 – woohoo!) On a more serious note, I reckon it’s something all vegetable gardeners should get into. Being able to grow beans, tomatoes or salad leaves from seeds you’ve saved yourself won’t save you a fortune and it won’t fend off starvation if we ever go down the same economic route as Greece, but it will help. A bit. I spent a rare sunny afternoon this week getting these seeds out of the dried pods of the “Green in Snow” Oriental mustard that I’d grown in a trough this spring. I will probably plant them in early August, to give a steady supply of salad into September and early October.

A strawberry a day

Well OK, more like three or four strawberries at the moment, from three strawberry plants in the back garden (pictured) and three big containers in the front, each containing 3 – 4 plants. They are delicious. I wish I’d remembered (if I ever knew in the first place) what variety they are. Most of them came from a charity shop and I don’t think they were labelled in any way. The strawberries would be even more delicious if I waited till they were fully ripe before I picked them, but (a) I’m impatient and (b) the snails would get to them. I don’t use slug pellets but I have developed quite a good overarm throw, which usually ensures that the offending molluscs land in the alleyway between our back fence and the courtyard of the block of flats that backs onto us. If only there weren’t so many of the bloody things. The snails are why I have to put our runner beans in the front garden – there are so many snails in the back that the beans would have no chance of survival there. Even more robust plants, like spring onions and chives, end up covered with trails of slime.

Insane hailstorm!

What follows isn’t going to be pretty. It consists of a “before” and “after” picture, the “after” being my sorrel after experiencing the most incredible thunder/hailstorm I’ve ever seen at first hand. (Think three inch deep rainwater and hailstones the size of large peas.) If you’re of a sensitive disposition, look away now.

My sorrel a few days ago

...and after

Scary, huh? But the thing I really threw a wobbly over was my tomatoes – there are snapped stalks and broken off leaves everywhere, although I think some of them will survive.

and

By the time I thought of sheltering the tomatoes under a sheet of plastic (the detached roof off one of my greenhouses), it was too late – the damage had been done.

These are the very tomatoes I spent three hours lovingly potting up during the first weekend in May, before potting them on last week into their final containers, using a 50/50 mix of home-made and shop-bought compost. I will be gutted if I don’t at least have some surviving ones.