Yes, its a Foxglove I was wandering around the garden this morning when I saw this. I asked my “expert” what it was and was pointed at a page on the Kew Gardens website (kew.org) from January 2016. It turns out its an example of “terminal peloria” a well known but infrequent spontaneous genetic mutation…… Continue reading Weird Flowers and the Effect of a late spring
Category: Blog
Big Garden Birdwatch 2021
Like many people in the UK I did the “Big Garden Birdwatch” last weekend watching out for birds in the garden. For whatever reason, this year was a “bad year” with the total list of birds being: Great TitWoodpigeonCrow I’m convinced that the birds know that its Garden Birdwatch weekend and hide away because in…… Continue reading Big Garden Birdwatch 2021
Using the Raspberry Pi for Fantastic Video Communications with Zoom
Moving slightly off-piste this time, not talking about tomatoes or any other garden related things. Lockdown has meant that we haven’t physically seen our children/grandchildren much this year (in fact hardly at all) so we’ve got used to talking to them via Skype and Zoom. Some games work well (Uno, UnoFlip, Bingo, Go Fish) but…… Continue reading Using the Raspberry Pi for Fantastic Video Communications with Zoom
The best place to get your seeds?
At this time of year, I look through my boxes of seeds wondering whether I stick to the ones I’ve got or whether I should try to buy some new, different ones. My database (well spreadsheet) of tomato seed cultivars is a list of 6,000+ names, most of which its impossible to find a commercial…… Continue reading The best place to get your seeds?
End of the Tomato Season – 2020
The season is over, all the plants are pulled up and the harvest processed, stored and ready for use over the winter. Its been a peculiar year for a number of (largely unrelated) reasons. I terms of the size of the crop, its been good (a total of just over 40kg of useable tomatoes of…… Continue reading End of the Tomato Season – 2020
Split Apples
I don’t normally write about our apple trees (apart from the fight to stop magpies and squirrels eating them) but this is something new to me and shows how the weather has been somewhat strange this year. Split Discovery Apples As you can see our apples have split. We have (what I think is) a…… Continue reading Split Apples
End September 2020 – Really coming to the end of the season
I seem to keep writing that the season is coming to an end, then it doesn’t. More of the tomatoes have finished and the plants have been pulled up but there still seem to be some to come. The outdoor bush varieties are making their way into the greenhouses as plants in the greenhouse are…… Continue reading End September 2020 – Really coming to the end of the season
Mid September 2020 – The beginning of the end
Whilst there are still quite a few tomatoes still to come, its obvious that the plants are well past their best and we can see that the end of the season is in sight. We pulled up the first of the plants today which (surprisingly) was Summer Cider. Our harvest so far has been much…… Continue reading Mid September 2020 – The beginning of the end
August 2020 – Report so far
Most things are doing fine. The tomatoes are cropping well with much the same weight of tomatoes as the previous couple of years so far. The 2018 crop seemed to peak in a few weeks time so it will be interesting to see how they compare. 2019 wasn’t a very good year overall, this year…… Continue reading August 2020 – Report so far
Tomato Problems – Bacterial Canker
This year (2020) as every year, my plants seem to wilt with the leaves dying back. This year it seems slightly worse than normal but I keep going through cutting off the affected leaves and hoping for the best. However, it seems to have infected some of the fruit as well and some of my…… Continue reading Tomato Problems – Bacterial Canker