Flying Ant Day 2022

This year has been a bad year for blackfly, made worse (in our garden at least) by the fact that they are moved around from one plant to another by ants. They started on the broad beans which they forced me to harvest earlier than usual so they were smaller and migrated to the dwarf…… Continue reading Flying Ant Day 2022

First Tomato Harvest 2022

Today I decided that the tomatoes were starting to get ripe enough to warrant picking a few. As usual the cherry tomatoes are the first with Oleron Yellow, Red Berry, Garnet, Koralik Red Cherry & Indigo Cherry Drops making up the majority of fruit by number. However, the weight was mainly from standard red tomatoes…… Continue reading First Tomato Harvest 2022

Effects of Dry Weather

The weather this week has been hot, dry and windy. As a result, whilst the plants in the greenhouses are doing well and the tomatoes are starting to ripen in quantity, all the outside plants are suffering and need copious amounts of water. Even so, the runner beans have lost all their flowers and no…… Continue reading Effects of Dry Weather

Cucumbers – plenty & pickling

This year I’ve grown a different variety of cucumber. Normally I grow ”Burpless Tasty Green” which are an outdoor variety and are usually quite successful in the greenhouse and outdoors. This year, however, I had run out of seed (I know, I should have checked). Anyway, I had to go to the local garden centre…… Continue reading Cucumbers – plenty & pickling

Growing Vegetables at Home – Growing for Value

With the increasing cost of food, many people are writing about “growing your own food”. In some instances, they describe situations which aren’t representative of the average family with an average garden. Two Acre walled Gardens, the ability to keep livestock (usually chickens), etc. or they are growing things that aren’t practical or useful (Asparagus,…… Continue reading Growing Vegetables at Home – Growing for Value

Tomatoes – How many Trusses is the right number for Indeterminate Plants?

Amateur - August 2014

A truss of tomatoes is the bunch of fruit growing off the stem. Different cultivars have different sorts of trusses, some are long with up to 40 tomatoes on a truss, others are much shorter with only a few (sometimes as few as five or six) tomatoes. We grow tomatoes to get as many ripe…… Continue reading Tomatoes – How many Trusses is the right number for Indeterminate Plants?