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
Category: Blog
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
Elephant Hawkmoth
Whilst described by my Field Guide as ” one of the more common European hawkmoths”, I don’t remember ever seeing one before. This dead specimen was on the floor of one of our greenhouses. I’ll have to keep a watch out for the caterpillars because they can be voracious eaters of both the plants and…… Continue reading Elephant Hawkmoth
2022 – End of June Status
So here we are approaching the end of June (which means we’re past midsummer and on our way to Autumn) the garden and vegetables are beginning to be productive and I’m making the record of what we’re harvesting. The tomatoes are all growing well and have small fruit growing on them. I have a feeling…… Continue reading 2022 – End of June Status
Blue Tits Successfully Fledged – 2022
In my last post about the Blue Tits the parents were dashing backwards and forwards feeding their young. Well, now they’ve gone. A couple of days ago, it was apparent that the youngster (I never saw more than one) was preparing itself to depart and its parents were sitting some way away calling to it…… Continue reading Blue Tits Successfully Fledged – 2022
Busy Blue Tits – 2022
Sitting quietly in the garden I watched the Blue Tits dashing in and out of the birdbox. They were delivering food to their young family hopping in and out about every ten minutes (or less). Its virtually impossible to get a still picture as they hop around for a few moments before leaping into the…… Continue reading Busy Blue Tits – 2022
Planting out Tomatoes – 2022
So, the plants have got to the stage where they’re large enough to plant out. I grow my tomatoes in a couple of small greenhouses (since my polytunnel failed last year) in “Morissons Flower Buckets (MFBs)”. (For those of you who don’t know about them, Morissons is a UK supermarket and one of the things…… Continue reading Planting out Tomatoes – 2022
Apple Blossom – 2022
We have two apple trees in our garden, a Discovery eater and an unknown cooker. In January this year we significantly pruned the Discovery, cutting out large amounts of crossing wood and opening up the tree. I was nervous that this would damage the tree or shock it into sulking. The opposite appears to be…… Continue reading Apple Blossom – 2022
Airfix Wellington Bomber
All the bitsCockpitAll these bits are hiddenFuselageSide ViewWings BuiltWith UndercarriageWings attachedAnd tailplaneEngine CowlingsBombs FittedSide Guns (should have left these unfitted)WheelsPropellorsMore or less finished for paintingFirst coat of TopFirst coal of undersideGreen topPaintedTransfers – note the letters are wrongFront ViewClose-upLadder I’ve added to my collection of models with the Wellington MKII bought from a local model…… Continue reading Airfix Wellington Bomber
Tomatoes Germinating -2022
The tomatoes I sowed in the middle of March are (mainly) germinating and growing reasonably well. Of the 29 different cultivars, three have so far failed to show any sign of growth (which shows how old some of the seeds are so I’m unlikely to get Amber Coloured, Carotina, or Kibits Ukranian this year. I’ve…… Continue reading Tomatoes Germinating -2022