TOMATOES

TOMATOES

Home grown tomatoes will always be so much better than those purchased from the supermarket. They are not exposed to chemicals to keep them pest and disease free, and we let them fully ripen before picking. Picking a fully ripe cherry tomato fresh from the plant for immediate consumption is a wee taste of heaven, and in mid summer when

Feeding the tomatoes

we are picking bumper yields there are always a few cherry tomatoes that split, so we may not want to spoil the look of our harvest, and not wishing to waste a good tomato so we just eat as we pick and enjoy the moment.

Having grown tomatoes annually for nearly sixty years I have tried out borders, pots, growbags, ring culture and straw bales, which were popular for about ten years in the mid sixties. Flavour has been best for me when grown direct into a prepared soil border which I put down to the tomato plant having a great growing medium and access to plenty of every type of nutrient it needs. In past times this was normal commercial practise, but each winter the soil was sterilised with steam to kill all

Healthy young tomato plants

disease spores. Sometimes chemical sterilisation with chloropicrin was used so that the main problem disease verticillium wilt spores were killed. I have no access to either so I have to remove six inches of border soil and replace it with good garden soil to which I add well rotted compost then mix a few bags of compost from growbags into the surface plus some additional fertiliser as tomatoes are gross feeders. This may be a wee bit of strenuous exercise but for people of a certain age we are told it is good for us, and in any case it is on a small scale, taking about two days.

Seed sowing for this part of Scotland may depend on whether you have greenhouse heating or not and if you have access to a decent windowsill. I normally sow my seed first week in March but this year with a warm winter they were sown in the middle of February, hoping the good weather continues. This year I am trying out a range of cherry tomatoes so I do not need a lot of plants in total. Just as well as the packets had only ten seeds each. Been your normal tight Scotsman the plan is to sow half the packet and keep the rest for next year so I am counting on getting 100% germination. A couple of weeks

Summer harvest

later they all germinated apart from one seed. This gets the highest rating in Scotland of No Bad!!!

It is important to grow on plants with good light and a decent temperature to keep them sturdy. Plants are ready to plant out in early April, but plus or minus a couple of weeks depending on the weather. I space plants out about 18 inches apart along the border which is two feet wide. If you use growbags these are usually placed end to end with three plants per bag. Always shake up the compost in the bag before planting. If you have any spare plants it is always worth trying a few outdoors against a south facing wall or fence in a sheltered place.

Outdoor tomatoes

Tomatoes are grown as a single stemmed cordon and sideshoots are removed as soon as they are big enough to break off. I suspend strong polypropylene binder twine from strong wires along the roof and twist the plant around the twine as they grow taller.

Varieties This year I will again grow my favourite Alicante as my main crop but am trying a few cherry types such as Sungold, Cherry Baby, Rapunzel, Sugar Gloss and Supersweet 100. I have dropped Marmande a beefsteak type, which was a very poor cropper, though I have heard others getting good crops. I also dropped Yellow Delight which gave a massive crop, but with poor flavour and the plants were so vigorous they took over space from others nearby.

Wee jobs to do this week

Broad beans ready to plant

Up on City Road allotments some plot holders have been taking advantage of the mild winter and run ahead with broad bean sowing and planting out. I started sowing a fortnight ahead of last year and now germination has taken place I have potted up my seedlings into larger pots to give them more feeding and space to grow. They are quite hardy so they have been moved from the warmth of a south facing windowsill in a warm room into my unheated greenhouse. However if winter decided to make a last stand I have a greenhouse heater at the ready.

END

THE FIRST SPRING FLOWERS APPEAR

THE FIRST SPRING FLOWERS APPEAR

Spring arrived in February with record high temperatures following a very dry and mild winter. The garden plants just loved it. Crocus bloomed from mid February onwards. Over the years, crocus have given a very bright splash of colour heralding the end of winter, though usually from mid March onwards. They take over from the drifts of snowdrops and aconites which this year started the show in December for the early snowdrops then in

Tulip Scarlet Baby and yellow Saxifrage

January and February for the aconites. I can always find another corner to brighten up with more crocus ordered in the autumn. It was great to have afternoon coffee break on the patio in the sun at the end of February surrounded by huge drifts of crocus.  Looking ahead, the drifts of flowers can be enlarged with careful planning. Thick clumps of snowdrops can be lifted and transplanted in the green, but water them in if weather is dry and sunny. With aconites it is best to collect the seed and scatter it where ever you want more plants, but take care to check them out once the seeds germinate.

Naturalised narcissus

In the first year they only produce a pair of seed leaves, then in the second year you get the first true leaves but no flower. This comes along in the third year, but well worth the wait.

As the crocus display comes to an end along comes the other spring bulbs such as the blue flowered Chionodoxa and Anemone blanda followed by drifts of grape hyacinths. These just seem to love our soils and can be a bit invasive as they establish very easily. I underplant the grape hyacinth drifts with narcissus and oriental lilies. The narcissus flowers at the same time as the grape hyacinths, but then in summer when the spring bulbs are going into dormancy the Oriental lilies take over with massive scented flowers in white and pink. I tried planting crocus into this scheme, but the foliage of the grape hyacinth emerges in autumn and is too strong for the crocus to push through. In a normal winter, snow and frost help to flatten this foliage so the crocus can be seen, but not this year.

Narcissus February Gold nearly made flowering in February this year, but at least it is very welcome

Spring crocus under the apple tree

in early March as one of the earliest narcissus, and then all the other daffodils and narcissus follow on. Now we can have scent as well as colour, especially with the Cheerfulness types and the Jonquils as well as the large white trumpets of Mount Hood, but the bold colour of Golden Harvest is very hard to beat for sheer impact in large drifts.

Saxifrage is one of the earliest dwarf rock garden plants to flower, but plant the dwarf Tulip Scarlet Baby along side it and in most years they will flower together, though this year the Saxifrage has run ahead with the mild weather, and the dry soil has held back the tulip. Sometimes you just cannot win with our unpredictable climate, but we keep trying.

Pulmonaria started to flower from the end of February, but like the saxifrage it is ahead of the early tulips Monte Orange and Red Revival chosen to accompany it. The Pulmonaria is underplanted amongst my apple trees to add colour and give a display while the apples are coming quietly out of their winter dormancy period.

Coming up the scale my first Rhododendron praecox has started to flower, so fingers crossed that there is no late frosts as often happens as the blooms are too tender to with stand a cold snap.

Planting polyanthus

Forsythia, however is quite tough though it usually flowers at the end of March and into April, but this year flowering is well ahead with a good show in mid March.

Wee jobs to do this week

Check over tubs, pots and hanging baskets planted last autumn with spring flowers and replace any losses. Sometimes vine weevil maggots are a nuisance with polyanthus and over wintered pansies are prone to greenfly and leaf spot disease. Garden centres are well stocked up with spring flowers, so replace losses now while plants are thinking now is a good time to flower. Many of my tubs and hanging baskets are planted up with pansies which I grew from seed harvested early last summer from the best blue, mauve, yellow and lemon colours I could find. However most have ended up in deep blue shades and only the occasional lemon.

END

A NEW SEASON BEGINS

A NEW SEASON BEGINS

This year’s mild winter with warmer, dry, sunny days

Taking chrysanthemum cuttings

encourages us to take advantage of this and start seed sowing a week or so earlier than planned, and just hope there is no sting in the tail with a winter flurry and a cold spell as we head for Easter.

Onion Hybound seed and sweet peas were both sown in a propagator in mid February. Both are in cellular trays with the sweet peas at two per cell and the onions at several per cell. Once they germinate the onions will go into individual cells to grow on in the greenhouse which at this moment

Geranium ready to pot up

is not heated. However as other spring grown plants will also go under glass as well as a large stock of geraniums, I have a heater just in case winter decides to return to try and catch us out. Geraniums were propagated from cuttings in autumn, then potted up once rooted and kept on windowsills, but now they all need potting up, but as space is limited they will go into the unheated greenhouse. Chrysanthemum stools lifted in late autumn, boxed up and overwintered in the greenhouse have just loved this mild winter as they are showing a lot of growth, so I took a large batch of cuttings putting them in cellular trays and keep them close to house windows, but away from direct sunlight. In another cool room with a north facing window I keep my seed potatoes in trays close to the light for chitting. If this mild winter continues I will gamble a wee bit and plant my first early Casablanca either at the end of February or early March. They will go in quite deep in case of late frosts and I will earth them up as they break through the

Potato Charlotte with good chitts

soil. Hoping to pick the first spuds ahead of last year, when I dug up my first shaw the first week in July.

Tuberous begonias are great value for flower impact, but they are always the last of the summer bedding plants to flower so I have started them a fortnight earlier than last year. My tubers must be heading for well over thirty years old, though most have been chopped up as I divide the big ones as long as each piece has a couple of buds showing. However over time they have become so misshapen I cannot tell which way is up, so they just go into boxes packed close together and covered with potting compost then placed in any warm room. At this stage they do not need light, but then once I see some buds appearing they will be removed and get boxed up with a bit more space and go into my greenhouse.

Broad beans are scheduled for sowing in early March, but as the weather so far has been in our favour it has been a late February sowing with one bean per cell in

Sweet peas and onions in the propagator

cellular trays. They are kept indoors until germination then they go into my unheated greenhouse as they are quite hardy.

Tomatoes are also getting sown at the end of February on a windowsill. Once they germinate they will need more space so my large geranium collection will have to come off the windowsills and go into the greenhouse to make space for the tomatoes which are not hardy. I will continue to grow tomatoes in a soil border in the greenhouse instead of growbags, but I remove some soil, replacing it with fresh soil from the garden then add compost to increase the fertility. As soil is packed with all the nutrients and minerals the tomatoes need, I find this enhances the flavour. This year I will be trying out a few new varieties of tomato as well as some tried and tested types. Alicante never lets me down so it is always on the list together with the golden cherry Sungold which I found to be really sweet. Added to those will be Cherry Baby, Rapunzel, Sugar Gloss and Supersweet 100. Two varieties from last year include Marmande, a beefsteak which cropped very poorly and Yellow Delight which was extremely vigorous and a very heavy cropper, but with poor flavour.

Under glass the grapes are still dormant, so the upright rods which were pruned in January can now get lowered so spur growth so buds break will be even from top to bottom. If left alone growth tends to be strongest at the top of the rod and weaker at the bottom.

Wee jobs to do this week

Putting tunnels on the early strawberries

Early strawberry varieties can be encouraged to fruit a good fortnight ahead of normal if the rows are covered with low polythene tunnels. The varieties Mae and Christine are perfect as well as Honeoye. Make sure the polythene is well secured as we seem to be getting more gale force winds.
END