First tomato flowers and lots more tomato plants

 #tomatoplants #polytunnel

Today I have been in the polytunnel standing here

 Pricking out and potting on a lot of these. 

If you want to know how I do my potting on of tomatoes there is a "How to" guide up the top or you can find it here. I have done more than 100 plants now.

These are much larger plants which I sowed the seed for on 2nd Feb this year - These are early varieties, Latah, Salt Spring Sunrise, Costaluto Genovese and Yellow Perfection.

I have already planted some out into their final positions in the polytunnel and they have flowers on them.

but there are lots more plants waiting for me to get on and finish clearing up and sorting out the last bit of the polytunnel. Better get on with it then.

Busy unpacking and moving and digging

STILL TIME TO ENTER THE HAMPTON COURT DRAW! ->



Well the unpacking was the latest Rocket Gardens delivery - no sooner had I got delivery #2 and 3 in the ground than #4 turned up!

You all know the drill by now I guess - a box turns up here by courier, full of organically grown plug plants, packed in layers of lovely damp hay, which I then unpack and plant on

Lots of lovely layers of lovely plants :)

which I then moved into the polytunnel, while I find somewhere to plant them out.

It must be summer - the fan is back as a fixture in the polytunnel. It is activated when the temperature reaches a set ( by me) level inside. it really helps to keep things cooler during the day. Without it temperatures can soar to far too hot.

I will do a post about the Hot Bin and Hungry Bin separately, suffice to say I have been digging them out and am very pleased with what I have taken out :)

Rocket gardens delivery # 3

In other news apart from struggling with Google, I have been unpacking and planting up my third Constant Garden delivery   from Rocket Gardens. Again, the box was delivered the next morning after I was emailed to tell me it was on the way, again the plants were mostly in beautiful condition and carefully packaged, as I described in my last post about delivery # 2

A couple of tomato plants were a bit sad looking though, as were a couple of the bean plants. I am a great believer in letting people know if there is an issue with stuff - after all how will they know there is a problem if they are not told about it? And how can they fix a problem they are never told about it? So I emailed Rocket Gardens to tell them about the problem and they immediately said they would send me some replacements and thanked me for letting them know. 

Considering the sheer number of plants in the delivery I am amazed and delighted at the good quality and range of the plants I have been sent so far. We are already eating from delivery #2 (salads, spinach and chard) and the other plants are growing well.

I have the staging in the polytunnel absolutely full of lovely plants from Rocket Gardens, both from the last delivery and this latest one :-) I really must get them planted out :-)

But first I need to make up a display board for the Low Carbon Ledbury stall I am doing at the Ledbury Community Fair on Sat :-) I need to get laminating and sort out the display :-)

Planting and growing and tidying up. (and don't forget the Givaway!)

I planted these courgette seeds, from out of the Seed Pantry Summer Veg box, on 22nd  May. The Seed Pantry kit, (which I was sent back in Febuary) comes with coir dics which just need water added, also rice husk and coir pots to grow in. I added water, seeds and put the cover over the little tray.

We will see what happens, but I am (again) impressed with the contents of the Seed Pantry Kit. The carrots are growing well and the mange tout are all sprouting strongly :-)

I have had my hands in a lot of coir related products this week, as on Tuesday I went over to Withington  to get some more growing medium from Fertile Fibre, who sell Soil Association approved organic composts. More about that in another post, though! I need to do the visit justice :-)

Armed with more growing medium, I have been busy potting on lots of plants, selling a lot more and getting the polytunnel into its summer layout. Tomato plants are doing well and I have some small fruits already setting :-)

Not sure I am going to beat my record of eating the first ripe tomato on June 16th this yeat, but still, I can almost taste that first, ripe, red, juicy tomato now...mmm.

I just need more hours in the day!

Don't forget to enter the Givaway, will you :-) I will draw the names on Bank Holiday Monday.

Useful gardening/planting advice.

Just a reminder that you can find all sorts of useful ( I hope) to you articles under the "how to..." tab at the top of the page!

Starting Parsnip seeds

Growing Beans

Growing Potatoes in bags

Growing Potatoes and Jerusalem Artichokes

are all useful NOW - the way the weather has been we are at least 3 weeks behind the "normal" planting schedules, if not more...!

Happy gardening :-)

How I prick out and pot on my tomato plants.

I have been asked quite a few times recently how I grow my tomato plants, a reminder that there is a  "How to " guide on growing tomatoes, peppers and aubergines on the "How to..." tab up the top and I also talk about this subject on my YouTube channel.

But I realised I haven't discussed what I do with the plants once they have germinated so I thought I would do another  "How to" guide,  on pricking out and potting on Tomato plants.

Seed sown Feb 10th 2013, in porch in heated propagator at ~20 C














 March 2nd 2013 - seeds germinated and seed leaves showing.
 
At the end of March the seedlings were pricked out into individual 2 inch pots, with the soil well up the stem so as to encourage aerial roots to grow.



  

April 14th 2013 Plants well grown and need moving from these 2 inch pots into next size (3 inch) pot.

If you click on the photo above, you can see the tiny hairs on the stem - these will form more soil roots if buried.

Again, the stem is covered with soil to encourage the aerial roots ( the tiny hairs) to turn into soil roots - this gives the plant a better root system and so it can take up more nutrients and water.
 

And so we come to today, where I potted some plants on again, this time into 4 inch pots. These are not the same plants as above ( they are now in 6 inch pots and have their first flower trusses) but I thought it would be useful to show how I do this.

I carefully took the plant out of  the old pot. You can see from the photo below how much extra root system has been produced by earthing up the stem each time.

 This is the way I re fill the pot around the plant.

I put the plant in the pot and tilt it away from me,

then gently pour growing medium into the pot on the side nearest to me.

 I then tilt the pot towards me and pour growing medium into the pot on the side furthest away from me.

This puts the plant upright in the pot, and I add more growing medium until the soil level is up to the next pair of true leaves.

I do the same with peppers and aubergines, but do not bury them so deep. I am careful with all the plants not to overwater them, so as to avoid the soft stems rotting. Once the stems are harder (as they age) this is less of an issue.

I will probably pot the tomatoes into larger (6 inch) pots once more, before they go into their final places in the polytunnel, growing individually in builder's buckets standing in gravel trays.

This is what it looked like last year, at the start of July.

I only have 100 or so more plants to pot on, today!

Hope this helps you to understand how I grow them :-)

Frugal soup

One of the things I did manage to make this week was a big batch of veg and lentil soup.

Peppers from the polytunnel featured in this soup, as I used up the mis shapen or slightly damaged ones from the big basket I harvested..

I used a couple of onions and some tomatos - the last from the polytunnel -  a few very limp bits of celery , a courgette which I had left on the plant and it got nibbled,  I also used up some slightly stringy beans, which I stringed using my magic bean stringer thinamajig, cut up very finely and simmered first until tender - so I could check there were no stringy bits in them BEFORE I added them to the soup - I HATE bean strings!

They were not stringy :-)    so in they went to the pan, cooking water and all.

I then added a couple of handfuls of red lentils, and a tub of stock made from the last chicken we had roasted for dinner. All this was boiled up and then left to simmer and turn to delishousness

We ate 3 huge bowlfuls between the three of us, with home made bread, we had 3 more portions for lunch the next day AND I froze 12 portions.

I calculated that the ingredients cost me less than two pounds, maximum - and that is at organic veg prices! but I did allow for them being in the "reduced" section of a shop - rather than at full price - because that is where they would have been.

18 BIG portions of organic lentil and vegetable soup for less than two pounds

I love home made soup :-) I could happily eat it every day I think

Polytunnel and garden in August

So, August. Hmmm. Supposed to be warm, dry and sunny, normally. But here in the UK we have had yet more gloom, lack of sun and lots of rain.

I have given up with Carrots in the veg garden - I know I could probably get a last gasp sowing of an early variety like Nantes in the soil, but after the total failure of 6 different sowings of multiple rows of carrots ( not one carrot!) I have given up. I have sown seed in pots in the polytunnel and that will have to do.

Peas, likewise I have abandoned. I had a few handfuls of Mange Tout  in July and that is all and the plants were again smashed to bits in the last downpour at the start of August.

We have harvested the Onions as the stems were bending over and wilting - the harvest this year is down from the usual 60 lbs or more to about 30 lbs. They are drying in the polytunnel at the moment. The Shallot harvest was pathetic - about 3 lbs of shallots are stored.

I have finally got a  couple of Courgette plants going outside and am beginning to harvest one or two courgettes from them. The Pumpkins however are dead - again overwhelmed by water from the sky I think.

The Leeks are doing well, as are the Parsnips. I have had no Dwarf French Beans from the plants yet, although the plants themselves are doing OK.

I AM now harvesting Climbing French Beans (hurrah!) and the Blue Lake are looking good and I hope to get a good crop to freeze.

 I do not know if the Celeriac ( under the long white mesh tunnel) will do well - the plants are still very small.

In the netted raised beds the Kale and Calabrese plants are doing well - small heads have formed on the Calabrese. The PSB plants are hanging in there - if I can keep the Cabbage White butterflies away they should be OK.

The Spinach ( under the white mesh) is good as well.

 


Our potato harvest is well down on last year - but at least we managed to cut off the haulms before the blight damaged the actual spuds in the ground, so we have about 60 lb of stored potatoes to eat from now on. Normally we store about 150 lbs to eat over the winter so I guess we will be buying them this year.

Unfortunately the blight has got inside the Polytunnel for the very first year since we have lived here. We are surrounded by blighted potato fields here and have been so for about a month so I am not surprised, but I AM saddened.  My poor tomato plants :-(

You can see the blighted foliage on the tomato plants - I cannot move the peppers outside so I suspect they will get it next.

But I am eating Kale from the polytunnel plants already and have all sorts of green leafy stuff growing for the autumn.

I stripped all the tomatoes off the plants and brought them inside - hopefully some will ripen and I suspect I will be making a lot of tomato based chutneys!

I will be cutting down the blighted tomato plants and putting the foliage in the HotBin.

How is your garden growing? has the weather affected you?

What is growing here, now.

Plant order from Rocket Gardens

As you all know we have had some very wet weather here. A lot of plants have been smashed to bits by the torrential rain, or just didn't even germinate at all this year.

I had little success with my courgette plants - the two in the polytunnel are doing ok, but the four I planted outside got smashed in the last downpour which also flooded the garden and polytunnel.

I have also had a complete failure of dwarf french beans and the latest set of pea plants. I have planted loads more seeds in the polytunnel, I tried looking on Freecycle, I have asked around friends and I have looked in my local garden centres for organic plants but with no joy - I guess growers are suffering the same way and what few plants are in the shops are snapped up quite quickly!

So I decided to buy in some plants online and thought I would see what Rocket Gardens plants were like. I have heard good things about them from various friends and from reviews in the media  Rocket Gardens, say on their website

All of our seeds are sourced from Soil Association approved organic seed suppliers.
The compost we use to grow the seedlings in is approved for use in Organic systems by the Soil Association.
Our plants are grown naturally under a fully organic regime.

 
So, I decided to order some courgette plants, some peas and dwarf french beans as well as some more spinach as I have been having trouble with growing seedlings and I wanted a back up in case of any more losses! I also ordered some late strawberry plants and some herb plants. When I ordered there was 25 % off all orders so I did buy a few more plants than I originally intended (cough!)


The cardboard box came promptly and the plants were packed in layers of hay ( organic, I later found out on checking :-) )

The herbs were very good plants, I have brought the Lemongrass plants inside ( after listening to what Jekka McVicar had to say!)

The mint was to replace a variety which died in the very cold weather last year.

I also planted up a herb planter with some of the other herbs I bought. All were a good size and very healthy looking.

The strawberry plants were quite the best looking ones I have ever bought and I will be planting up a strawberry tower with them in the next day or so.

I shall pot on the beans, peas, spinach and  and courgette plants into individual containers and let them get a little larger before planting them out, but they were a good size also. I just want to make sure they do not get drowned or bashed to bits outside (especially as it is raining here AGAIN!)

Also had a very nice chat to a lady on the other end of the phone, when I called them about the hay, so all in all am impressed with their service and their plants. The prices are pretty good, also ( especially with a further 25 % off...)

Will keep you all updated :-)