Tomatoes and Flowers
Hello all!
I hope everyone’s had a good week.
This past week, I managed to move the work around a bit, and we worked a few longer days through the week so that Dave could extend last weekend by having Monday off. He enjoyed spending time in our garden, in-between heavy rain showers. We can’t complain about the rain though because our gardens really do need it.
Dave’s Home-grown Cherry Tomatoes
Dave mowed our lawns and did some deadheading. Then he appeared at the door with an armful of produce, including these lush tomatoes.
Home Grown Cherry Tomatoes
In January, when tomatoes were scarce in the shops, Dave decided that this summer, we will have home grown tomatoes. He saved the seeds from two cherry tomatoes – one red and one yellow, and left them to dry out in two small dishes. Dave’s late, great uncle, used to sow his tomato seeds in January and start them off indoors, so, Dave followed suit. Once the seeds were dry, he filled two small pots with seed compost, divided the seeds between them and then sprinkled a thin layer of compost over the top. He watered them well and placed them on the window sill in our conservatory where there is loads of natural light, and it’s lovely and warm. It wasn’t long before the seedlings appeared, so Dave then transplanted them into individual pots and moved them to the greenhouse. There are 18 pots: nine for the red and nine for the yellow! He waters them daily and feeds them with organic tomato feed once a week, and as you can see from these he picked, they are coming along a treat and ripening nicely. There’s nothing quite like the rich taste of cherry tomatoes, and these certainly don’t disappoint.
Pretty Penstemon
Dave also took a number of penstemon cuttings, they are one of his favourite flowers and we have a number of different varieties. Penstemon are summer-flowering perennials with long stems and delicate, bell-like blooms. They have semi-evergreen foliage in the winter, and they flower through the summer and into the autumn. A neighbour of ours mentioned that she’d tried to get some penstemon from the garden centre but wasn’t able to, hence Dave taking the cuttings. Once they’ve ‘taken’ we’ll pop them over to her.
Penstemon ‘Sour Grapes’ (and a few ‘King George’ in the Corner)
What else is going on in our garden? Well, the blackcurrants and strawberries have finished, but the raspberries and rhubarb are still producing fruit, and there are courgettes and cucumbers a plenty. The apple and pear trees are fruiting well but won’t be ready for picking until the autumn. The mulberry tree has fruit swelling too; I’m really looking forward to experimenting and making recipes with these. I forgot to mention – we’ve also had two small carrots, with more on the way, and several handfuls of runner beans which are lovely and young, none of the leathery, stringy produce that is in the shops.
Echinacea
Oh, one last thing - we’ve noticed that we have echinacea in the front garden. Echinacea are pinky-purple, daisy-esque flowers on a long stem which typically self-seed and spread. They are hardy perennials that survive cold winters. Did you know that Echinacea is used in herbal medicine? It is believed to shorten the duration of colds and flu, reduce symptoms such as a sore throat and is recommended to boost the immune system and fight infection.
Echinacea
Well, that’s all for today’s blog. If you guys have any comments, if would like to tell us about tips or tricks that have worked for you, or if you have anything at all that you’d like to share with us, please send me an email; I’d love to hear from you! marion@degardenservices.com
I’ll be back with another blog next week; have a lovely weekend, all!