Tomatoes

Back in July when I was permanently attached to the Kings Seeds catalogue for days and probably weeks, I chose two packets of tomato seed. I nurtured Tomato Rainbow Blend Mixture and Tomato Sungold F1 and eventually got to the point today where I have ten plants producing fruit in my garden. More of the cherry tomatoes (Sungold F1) survived to today than of the mixed packet. As they are a fast producer, I've been able to eat some already. They look gorgeous and taste okay. Oops, what was that about? I went back to the seed packet and to the catalogue (my Kings Seed catalogue gets the attention many devout religious people give to their Bible) adnm found I'd purchased a hybrid. Well I'm a bit snobby about such things these days and it will be heirloom seeds all the way next year.

As for the Rainbow Blend, there are some interesting shapes of fruit thus far, but none of them are ready for eating yet. I'm a little frustrated by having to guess the varieties and next year I'll splash out and buy packets of individual varieties.

We may even have a glasshouse next year, but for the meantime I'm assuming that I'll have the same growing conditions in 2008 as 2007 - raising seedlings on the windowsills and planting in pots and against the brick house. I'm thinking about "Sub Arctic Plenty", "Oregon Spring" and "Russian Red" as apparently they cope with low temperatures.

I found one leaf roller caterpillar last week - a fat healthy confident one too. Some of the plants look very healthy and others mostly so. I removed one which wasn't pollinating at all a few days ago. Laterals spring out and up when I'm not looking and I am hoping for some fabulous fruit withing the next two months. Tomatoes have taken up more of my gardening time than anything else I've planted this season.