Crazy tomatoes

I picked the last of my tomatoes yesterday before cutting them down and look what I found:

Crazy!

There was also this little branch growing from the base - only a few months too late! I couldn't bring myself to chop it down though.

It was all going so well...

Blight [noun]

1. any cause of impairment, destruction, ruin or frustration

2. (in plant pathology) the rapid and extensive discolouration, wilting and death of plant tissues

Yes it's finally happened....I thought I was holding it back but the wet weather the last few days seems to have done it's worst. I went out yesterday to find lots of unappetising tomatoes:

I can't get this photo to go the right way up, sorry!

I definitely agree with the description that this is rapid. There wasn't any sign of it 3 days ago except on the leaves. It is mainly just this branch at the moment so I have thrown these away, but it can only be a matter of time for the rest. The plan is to save what I can, use the red ones to make chutney and try to ripen the green ones indoors. Ah well, this is what comes of living in a country with changeable weather and not having a greenhouse. I've done pretty well with these so far so I am not too upset - we have already had quite a lot of tomatoes from these plants this year. I feel lucky that it didn't happen a month ago.

I've found a lovely chutney recipe on BBC Good Food, autumn tomato chutney. I'm going to try to make this at the weekend if I can pick up some jars from Hobbycraft.

The story so far (month 4)

Gosh it's been a while hasn't it. Hello! No excuses really, just life getting in the way!

Let's start with the good stuff. Look at my tomatoes. They are producing so many red fruits now it's just brilliant. I attempted to make some sun dried tomatoes but I had the oven on too high so they were more sunburned, but they were still tasty. Next up is to attempt some chutney. I had a bit of a panic that I had blight - some of the leaves are definitely going mouldy. I googled it and came up with the rather random cure of spraying the leaves with milk diluted with water. It does seem to have worked - it's still going strong at least.

Also my spring onions are getting big! I think the two I planted earlier might be ready but I'm not really sure how to tell. I think I will try one this weekend and see. That's exciting :)

There's been a bit of colour the last 2 weeks as my mint is flowering. I've never seen mint flower - it's beautiful.

My chives flowered again too - I went to cut off the dead heads and look, lots of seeds! I don't think I will plant more chives but I collected the seeds anyway, it felt like I was getting something for nothing!

The only thing that has not been going so well is the beans. I think I have definitely been overwatering them and they have gone yellow and mouldy, which is a shame. I'd given up on them, I haven't watered them for two weeks but yesterday I spotted something wonderful, a few new flowers! I don't know if it will come to anything but I have definitely learned to go easy on the watering.

I also found this - I thought it was a mouldy bean but it was dried out. Look what was inside - lovely purple beans!! I'll keep these for next year.

I hope all your veg patches are treating you well.

Harvest time

Isn't it amazing when all the effort that you have put into something finally pays off. All of the nurturing, pruning and the watering is all worthwhile when you get this.

Isn't it great! I've just noticed the rather large scary knife in the corner of that photo...you can guess the fate of the tomato a few minutes after this!

It was closely followed by this...

And then this!!

It's been so great seeing some proper harvests come into the kitchen. We have frozen most of the chillies and eaten the tomatoes. There are plenty more ripening though so I plan to make some sun dried tomatoes with the next lot. Well, oven dried - this is England.

This is what it's all about - popping out onto the balcony on a sunny evening to pick some bits to go with tonight's dinner.

I hope everyone else is enjoying some nice homegrown additions to their meals at the moment!

More flowers and other happenings

There are some amazing things happening on my balcony. Here's a couple more flowers you haven't seen yet...

Runner Beans

Tomatoes

Lavender

Look at my pea plants - I find this incredible. It's reaching out to grab onto anything it can, and it's growing up the net nicely. Things like this always brings me back to the question "how do they know how to do this?" I am really enjoying seeing this stuff happen on a daily basis.

This is the most exciting news though, there are real, actual, proper chillies and tomatoes growing. Look!

Note to self: stop taking so many close up photos on new camera, remember to get the bigger picture too!

More tomato drama

This post is a tale of danger, excitement, daring and rescue on the high seas (or balconies). My tomatoes have put on a growth spurt in the last week and had reached the top of the greenhouse so it was time to take them out. They look great - the stems are thick and strong and they smell AMAZING. I love that earthy smell of tomato plants. This morning began as a beautiful sunny day, so I moved the tomatoes out and supported them with canes as so:

I was happy, and they looked happy so I came indoors and got on with some other things. That's exactly when the wind decided to make an appearance - typical. Met Office were saying that there would be a strong north easterly wind today and tomorrow and the tomatoes weren't looking so good. I had a bit of a panic because the leaves were getting battered and I could see them snapping off soon. Luckily my other half was around and came up with an ingenious engineering solution to the wind by using both of the covers for the greenhouse (I managed to buy only a cover rather than a greenhouse the first time round from Wilkinson online). We created a space for the tomatoes which means that they are protected on the sides but open at the top to let them grow. And we didn't loose any leaves along the way!

It ain't pretty but it works!