Wednesday 22 August 2007

Tasting tomatoes

I have been able to taste test all 3 varieties of my tomatoes, Gardeners Delight, Nyagous and Camp Joy.
Gardeners delight are a common favorite amongst growers as they are good croppers and quite reliable. They have produced for me a reasonable crop this year but they are always quite small and whilst tasting good, are a big plant for small return.
The first new one for me this year is Camp Joy, which has grown well and produced medium sized fruits. Taste wise they have a light flavour, a little disappointing really.
The second new one Nyagous has produced some large sized fruits and averages 4-5 to a truss.The plants have grown well and are very keen to continue putting on new shoots all the time. The fruits when ripe do have a lovely dark blush to them and are quite fleshy and soft inside. i would imagine these cook and break down very easily but taste wise again they are a little light on flavour, so both tom's i would give 6/10.
Next year i need to reduce the number of plants i grow in the greenhouse so i will need to consider which varieties i am going to grow, whether its a beefsteak type or any others.

Also an update on the chillies - all plants are now laden with chillies, the Big Jims have really done very well, and the largest so far is 19cm long. The Etna and Padron are also producing many fruits, and i am looking forward to this tasting session!!!

Friday 17 August 2007

Plot Update

The plot has grown loads recently, unfortunately its mostly weeds again. But i did manage to dig up some more potatoes although blight has ruined a fair few of them. I took a good couple of handfuls of the white chard pictured below, and tonight i made a chard gratin to go with some gammon steaks. I now cannot move to far or fast!! The chard has been a success this year amongst all the other poor crops.
I also thinned out the swedes, picked some runner beans and courgettes, and pinched out the tips of the pumpkins as they have several fruits now on each plant.



Saturday 11 August 2007

greenhouse latest

Slight delay updating due to new router problems and basic lack of time! Today i managed to do some tidying up. My two outdoor tomato plants look suspiciously like having blight, certainly potato blight is in the area, so i disposed of them before it spread to my indoor crop. I then thinned out the plants in the green house as firstly they were seriously overgrown and trying to grow more shoots everywhere. I also found a few leaves that looked a little dodgy bearing in mind the outdoor tom's, so i removed them too.
The first photo is the pepper plant which is looking good, two nice sized fruits and many more starting to grow.

This is the black Russian tomato Nyagous, i have several really large tom's, this one being the largest, although unfortunately a victim of my erratic watering as the split skin shows.
The Big Jim chillis are coming along nicely, i must update the competition page even if i'll never win it, 2 of the 3 plants have quite a few chillies.
Some of the 'Gardeners Delight tom's, which while productive does produce small fruits and i dont think i'll grow it again next year.
The thinned out greenhouse, minus a couple of plants. When they are in also it makes watering very difficult and i basically have to crouch at the door and can get in no further. Next year i'm going to have to plan a little better my number of plants.