Time for Winter Digging

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Well, I have been trying to think of something different to cheer us all up. It has been such a terrible year for outdoor organic tomato plants with so much rain. Many of mine suffered from blight. Even those in the greenhouse did not do as well as usual because of lack of sunshine.

Time to get digging! This is the best time generally for digging bare soil. Autumn rain will have softened the earth, making it ready for frosts to break down clods in heavy ground through the winter, and to get in and kill bugs and bacteria. So we have a lot of hard work in store to keep us fit!

Never mind - soon be a new year and we can start thinking about tomato plants all over again and which varieties to choose. Meanwhile - here are a few ideas for Christmas presents for your gardening friends (or leave a list somewhere for Santa to find!) Christmas Gardening Gifts

Tomato Trivia - 6 Things you May Not Know About Tomatoes

1. The Latin name is Lycopersicon esculentum.



2. Tomatoes are fruits not vegetables.



3. They originate from Central and South America.



4. They were introduced to Europe by Spanish conquistadors during the early 16th century.



5. They were originally called love apples.



6. They are extremely rich in lycopene which helps you ward off the risk of cancer. But they are also high in potassium which can be dangerous for certain health problems such as renal or kidney trouble

The Autumn Garden

October sees rustic leaves and berries begin to dominate borders, so fill them with blooms such as aster and heather to add dashes of fresh colour. There's still plenty of pruning and planting to do to get ready for Spring and it's important to bring tender plants inside before they are damaged by the first frosts.

Preparing the greenhouse for winter is vital so wash off any shade paint, clear out any old crops, check over heaters and consider insulating as well.

For further advice read 'The Gardening Month - October' guide.

If you would like some ideas for Christmas Gifts for your gardening friends (or to mention casually what you would like for yourself!) take a look at the Greenfingers catalogue.

Jobs for July

If this was a normal July you would expect your garden to be looking its best. To keep it looking good, then now is the time to deadhead your flowers; Roses, delphiniums, peonies, and pinks, will all benefit from having brown flower heads removed, and with luck this will encourage them to produce a second bloom. Well I don’t know about you, but my first blooms went all soggy and brown so here’s hoping for a second chance.

At least we can try and capture some of this rain – Water Butts

July is also the ideal time to spend relaxing and enjoying your garden. Ha ha! Well, if it ever stops raining try to make the most of it. Garden Chairs

In the greenhouse be generous with the watering of tomatoes, courgettes, and cucumbers. Keep the liquid feed flowing generously too. Outdoors they still need feeding (although you could cut out the watering for a little while!).

Pick beans regularly to keep them cropping, and make sure they are never short of water.

Make sure fruit trees against walls are also never short of water while the fruits are still swelling.

Prune blackcurrants as you pick, taking out a number of the older stems altogether, to be stripped of fruit over your knee.

Sow more salads to produce a succession throughout the summer.

Rain, rain, rain.

We're now properly into the summer season, although the weather would have us believe otherwise, and with all this rain and warmth, it means only one thing in your garden - growth! Despite the deluge there are a number of things you can do in your garden to keep it looking good.

When the weather permits carry out a few essential garden maintenance tasks such as weeding and mowing, and protect flowers from aphids and other garden pests.

Make sure nets over strawberries and raspberries are proof against the birds. Peg down a few runners if you want some extra plants. Otherwise remove them.

Plant out pot-grown tomatoes, courgettes, pumpkins and sweet corn.

Keep hoeing between rows of vegetables while the weeds are still just seedlings. Choose a dry windy day for best results. A few pieces of paving slab placed between the rows now will make hoeing and picking a cleaner and easier operation all season.

When you're stuck indoors why not plan a summer project, you'll find plenty of ideas in Green Fingers Garden Workshops

June Jobs

"What is one to say about June, the time of perfect young summer, the fulfillment of the promise of the earlier months, and with as yet no sign to remind one that its fresh young beauty will ever fade." Gertrude Jekyll, On Gardening.

This wise quote from Gertrude Jekyll is the perfect introduction to the month of June, which is named after the Roman goddess Juno. For gardeners, it's the ideal time for outdoor sowings as warmer weather conditions are on the way.

• Prepare the ground for early bedding plants and thin out plants that have already been sown.
• When digging up early potatoes take care not to damage or pierce tubers.
• Provide plenty of water directly at roots of newly transplanted plants.
• Sow maincrop peas now.
• Hand pollinate marrow, courgettes and pumpkins to encourage good fruit set.
• Continue to make sowings of spring onion, lettuce, radish and beetroot.
• Summer and autumn cabbage varieties sown during April in seedbeds should be transplanted along with brussels sprouts.
• Careful hoeing between vegetables should be carried out to keep weeds at bay.
• Plant herbs such as mint, thyme, parsley and basil to give a continuous supply.
• To improve pollination for greenhouse tomatoes just tap the flowers.

Detoxification

Our bodies are programmed to deal with naturally occurring toxins, but nowadays we have a serious problem with pollution, our food is sprayed with pesticides, growth enhancers, and fertilisers and manufactured with a wide variety of other chemicals. Too many toxins in the body mean that the liver cannot cope with the load and many of the toxins are not eliminated as they should be into our urine or through the gall-bladder into the intestines. They may be stored in fat and tissues in the body, or go on to cause cell mutations or even cancer.

So organic gardening - whether you set up a single window box or devote the whole of your garden to it, creating a viable compost heap, using companion planting and mulches, is not only very important to your health, but enormously satisfying.

Organic produce, grown with no synthetic chemical pesticides, no synthetic chemical fertilisers and with great attention paid to the health of the soil, animals and ecosystems that are involved in its creation will reduce the amount of toxic and persistent chemicals in your food which in turn will have a dramatic effect on your overall health.

March in the garden

Outdoors, when conditions are favourable - sow carrots, parsnips, beetroot, broad beans, peas, spinach, swiss chard, lettuce, summer cabbage and cauliflower, but do keep an eye on the weather forecast and be prepared to protect the beds if necessary.

In a frost-free greenhouse make the first sowings - of peppers, tomatoes, cucumber, celery, globe artichokes and salad leaves. Celery and artichokes can be transplanted outside later in the spring.

If time is at a premium but you still want home-grown vegetables - why not try Module Grown Vegetable Starter Plants. These have been expertly grown under optimum conditions to produce a well developed root system, ready to romp away as soon as they are planted. Marshalls have a wide range of varieties and even offer a choice of despatch dates so you can have staggered planting - avoiding a glut of one variety.

Potatoes can be planted in well prepared beds - in the milder parts of the country, but wait until late March or early April if you live in cold area. I am lucky to live in the south, so I have already planted my first early potatoes. I chose Swift this year, with Charlotte and Maris Peer chitting in the shed in waiting for another few weeks. Traditionally early potatoes should be planted on Good Friday. How ridiculous! Good Friday comes at a different time every year. I go by the weather conditions and the soil conditions rather than the date.

What is organic?

Trials have shown that organic crops generally contain significantly more vitamin C, iron, magnesium and phosphorus and significantly fewer nitrates than conventional crops. Also, the nutrients in many vegetables drop significantly after harvesting so it is obviously better to grow you own, harvest and eat the same day.

How can we grow our vegetables without pesticides or fertilizers? Modern fleece tunnels are a boon to organic gardeners as they not only keep plants warm and frost free, but also prevent attack by flying insects such as butterflies, cabbage root fly, carrot fly etc. Unfortunately they also make a nice warm home for soil born pests like slugs, snails and woodlice.

It is very important to make regular applications of organic compost to develop good soil structure to help plants to withstand occasional periods of drought. This also ensures a regular supply of nutrients to the soil which in the absence of artificial fertilizers is much needed.

It is also important to choose the right varieties to grow organically. Crops that produce good strong root systems to access the available nutrients are essential. Also, condisder watering less. Heavily watered plants may grow faster, but the resultant crops lack flavour. You can find a lot of this information on the Garden Organic website www.gardenorganic.org.uk.

I always grow Aquadulce Broad Beans which I sow in November. By sowing in autumn, you will not only have earlier broad beans to harvest, but you will also avoid the dreaded blackfly. After harvesting the beans cut down and compost the haulms, but it is important to leave the roots in the soil as they are covered in lovely nitrogen nodules which will feed the soil ready for a crop of brassicas the following season.

I tried an experiment with fleece when I planted my broad beans this time. Half under fleece and half in the open. Today is March 1st and the fleece covered plants are 1 inch taller than the uncovered. However, the under cover leaves are full of holes, probably nibbled by slugs. The outside plants have no such holes although there are a few gaps where some seeds have not germinated. Also they are very dirty and covered in splashed soil after the torrential rain we have been having.

I saw an interesting tip by Sarah Raven in the Daily Telegraph this weekend which I am going to try. She sows her seeds in lengths of guttering filled with non-peat based potting compost. You can put the lengths somewhere protected; it doesn't need lots of soil preparation; sowing like this takes no more time than sowing direct; and, standing at a table, you can sow carefully and space evenly. She sows two seeds to every planting station and if both germinate takes one out before planting. You can do the thinning with the plants still in the gutters, it saves kneeling down or bending and the method is very conservative of seed. Sowing salad leaves and herbs into pipes where they can wait in the wings, means salads all year round. The new plants can be slotted in, ready to pick, as the garden-grown ones come to an end. You can read her article at www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening.

1st February

Here we are - the first of February - and so much to do in the garden. All my tomato seeds are now sown in pots which I keep in the airing cupboard until they begin to show then move them to the spare room. They need the heat to germinate, but once they come through I don't want them to grow too quickly so move them to a slightly cooler environment with more light. As you can guess, my greenhouse is not heated. However, I have been able to sow some other, more hardy seeds out there such as brassicas. As usual I am in too much of a hurry to get things planted. I know from past experience there is no point as later sowings always catch up.

We have been having some very mild weather, but only occasionally sunny so the grass has grown terrifically, but has been too wet to mow. Nevertheless, I thought I had better have a go at mowing before it grew any longer. So on Tuesday when the sun was shining, I got my husband to sharpen the blade of the Flymo, set it back on a high setting and had a go. What a mess the lawn looks now. But at least it is shorter and this will help it dry off when we do get some drying weather and make it easier to tidy up later on.

(With regard to the said husband, you may wonder why he doesn't mow the lawn for me. Well he has something called Polymyalgia Rheumatica which affects his back and legs so he has great difficulty walking.)

Spring Fever

I have been gardening for a long time – nearly 50 years. My interested started when my father had to dig up the lawn and plant vegetables during the war. I always dreamed of having my own garden with lots of vegetables and a few chickens scratching away. I was lucky enough to achieve my dream once I was married, but with 4 babies to look after there was not much time to enjoy it. Once the children were at school I needed to go out to work to help pay the mortgage, so still no time for the garden. Now they have all left home and I am retired, but at times feeling my age. I am fortunate to be healthy and refuse to accept there is a pain in my hip this morning!

There is a very good article about tomatoes in the Daily Mail today by Chris Beardshaw. (Page 99 – I don’t know if you can find it online). I will copy a bit of it below.

“For best results, start glasshouse crops now. Tomatoes sold in supermarkets are grown with an emphasis on uniformity, pest and disease resistance and suitability for mechanical picking. The result is a far less flavoursome product than one that is home-grown.
The bulk of supermarket tomatoes originate from abroad and are harvested before the crop is ripe to facilitate shipping. These unripe tomatoes are then exposed to ethylene gas to promote ripening. Although this attempts to mimic the natural ripening process on the vine, the result is a less sweet, starchier fruit with drier flesh.”

He goes on to suggest several different varieties you could choose. Last year I grew a selection of one beefsteak variety, one red and one yellow cherry variety, and one average size tomato. I also grew 2 plants of Sweet Million and they really did have almost a million fruits and were very easy to grow and they went on fruiting for months. But I found them far too small with rather tough skins. The branches of fruit were so heavy they had to have extra support. Have any of you tried Sweet Million? I will not be growing them again.

Well, the sun has come out and I have Spring Fever. I must go out and start to prepare the greenhouse for the seeds which I am just itching to get planted.

Tomato Dombito F1

This has always been my favourite beefsteak tomato. Good flavour, nice shape and easy to grow. It is a little early to plant seeds yet unless you have heat in your greenhouse. Without heat once your seedlings appear you will need to cover them with fleece every night right through till the end of April when all risk of frost has passed. Nothing is more depressing than going out in the morning to find a lot of limp frost bitten little seedlings. They never recover and you have to start all over again.

I have cut and pasted below instructions for planting Dombito tomato, although these instructions are suitable for almost any greenhouse variety of tomato.

• Description: Cordon (Indeterminate). An extremely popular beefsteak variety producing high quality, semi greenback free fruits averaging 250-270g with a distinctive and delicious flavour. The plants are early to mature, compact in habit with resistance to Tobacco Mosaic Virus, Cladosporium and Fusarium. Suitable for a heated or cold greenhouse.
• Sowing Instructions: Sow in late winter for heated greenhouse cultivation or early spring for the cold greenhouse. Sow 6mm (¼in) deep in a good compost. Germination usually takes 6-14 days at 24C (75F).
• Growing Instructions: Transplant the seedlings when large enough to handle into 7.5cm (3in) pots and grow on in good light and cooler conditions. When 15-23cm (6-9in) tall plant out 45cm (18in) apart in a prepared greenhouse border soil, growbag, 23cm (9in) pots or ring culture.
• Aftercare Instructions: Remove side shoots as they appear and pinch out the growing point when 5-7 trusses have been formed. Feed regularly once the first truss has set.

Tomato - The Love Apple

Tomatoes were originally known as "Love Apples". Probably because tomatoes from North Africa were known in Italy as pomo dei Mori, "apples of the Moors." That was transliterated to the French pomme d'amour . . . "love apple."


The tomato plant was not grown in England until the 1590s. It was believed to be poisonous (tomato leaves and stems contain poisonous glycoalkaloids, but the fruit is safe). However, by the mid-1700s, tomatoes were widely eaten in Britain and North America.


Cultivated tomatoes vary in size from cherry tomatoes, about the same 1–2 cm size as the wild tomato, up to beefsteak tomatoes 10 cm or more in diameter. It is a good idea to grow a selection of varities. My favourites are

• Gardener's Delight, a fairly large cherry tomato which is safe to grow outdoors in England;
• Dombito, a beefsteak variety, and
• Mirabelle, a bright yellow cherry tomato, very sweet - pick and eat them like candy.

Tomatoes for Health

Lycopene is known to protect against breast cancer and research has also shown that men eating around eight tomatoes a day have a much lower incidence of prostate cancer, which is now as common in men as breast cancer is in women. Tomatoes are, furthermore, rich in the protective antioxidant betacarotene, which the body turns into life-prolonging vitamin A, and they have vitamins C and E, essential for a healthy heart, circulation and immune system. The low levels of sodium and high levels of potassium in tomatoes means that they aid in the prevention of high blood pressure and fluid retention.

Tomatoes are part of the 'Mediterranean Diet' and play a vital role in the way this healthy style of eating helps the population of southern Europe to lead longer and healthier lives. In South America they believe that tomatoes are an aphrodisiac and, while there's no scientific proof to support this belief, they do contain substantial amounts of vitamin E, which is important for fertility, so it must be worth a try. Fortunately, we're now much more adventurous in the way we combine aromatic herbs with tomatoes - another tip from our Mediterranean neighbours. And the herbs aren't just there for taste alone. The traditional addition of fresh basil leaves to raw tomatoes creates a simple salad which not only tastes good and smells good, but also makes you feel good, since the essential oils in basil act as powerful mood enhancers.

So come on everyone – eat more tomatoes and stay healthy. You may have to buy supermarket tomatoes at this time of year – but try your nearest Farmers’ Market. We have a Farmers' market once a month in Steyning and a stall there sells delicious tomatoes all year round. They come from the Isle of Wight so must be grown under glass – nevertheless they are better than the supermarket variety flown in from sunnier climes.

My favourite tomato dish is a sliced beefsteak tomato, layered with slices of goat’s cheese, a twist of pepper and a drizzle of olive oil. Scrumptious.

Plant friends and enemies

As with most fruits and vegetables, planting tomatoes closely packed together will attract more pests and disease. The best way to plant tomatoes is to intersperse them with other kinds of plants..
By planting carrots between tomato plants, both will benefit and there will be fewer pests.
Other tomato friends are parsley and marigolds (tagetes). Whiteflies and other aphids do not like marigolds. I have found French marigolds are best for this especially in the greenhouse - they look attractive too.

Other plant friends are:

• Brassicas like Rhubarb; Thyme; Camomile
• Beans like Savory
• Roses love Garlic
• Fruit trees benefit from Nasturtiums

Plant enemies:

• Tomatoes do not like Fennel
• Cabbage, Sage and Basil do not like Rue
• Peas do not like Garlic
• Potatos do not like Rosemary, Mint and Camomile

For more information on this subject Click Here!

Understanding your soil

All plants enjoy substantial amounts of organic matter – manure or compost in the soil. Organic matter holds nutrients in the soil so that they are not lost through leaching. It increases the amount of water your soil can hold as well as microbial activity in the soil, encouraging earthworms and creating a wonderful healthy soil system that produces nice sweet tomatoes.

Compost in the soil takes time to break down and release its nutrients– often up to 2 – 3 months. This means that if you want to use compost alone, it should be dug into the soil at least a month before you wish to plant your tomatoes.

It often helps to add a bit of fertiliser (even if you have used compost) at 5cm (2 inches) below and 5cm (2 inches) to the side of where you plant your seedling. If you put fertiliser directly in contact with the roots you will burn them and your tomato seedling may die or its growth be retarded.
Grow Juicy Tasty Tomatoes!

One is nearer to God in a garden than anywhere else on earth.

This is the epitaph my mother wanted on her grave. She grew roses. I prefer to grow vegetables - especially tomatos. But tomatos bought from a supermarket taste of nothing at all and why is it that even the tomatos I grow for myself do not have the flavour they used to. Is it in the soil? These modern grow-bags do not have any life in them. Gone are the days when one could go outside and collect the manure from the passing milkman's horse to spread on the garden!
So I have started this blog in the hope that others will share their tips for growing flavourful tomatos.

Terrific Tasty Tomatoes

Tomatoes are a must for any vegetable garden. They are versatile, delicious, colorful, and a pleasure to share with friends and neighbors. Best of all, biting into your very own fresh-picked tomatoes creates immediate taste bud ecstasy. Tomatoes are easy to grow, both in your garden and in containers. And if you’re only familiar with Romas, Beefsteak, and your typical round reds, you’ll be delighted to know that there are around 4,000 different kinds of tomatoes out there! Have you ever sampled a Cherokee Purple, a White Wonder, a Yellow Pear tomato, or a Green Zebra?

Home Grown Tomatoes

Home grown tomatoes, home grown tomatoes
What would life be like without homegrown tomatoes
Only two things that money can't buy
That's true love and home grown tomatoes.”
John Denver, 'Home Grown Tomatoes' (from a song written by Guy Clark)

The World of Organic Tomato Gardening

Welcome to the home of organic tomato gardening. How to grow the tastiest organic tomatos both outdoors and in the greenhouse. Which varieties of tomatos are best. Tips on plant friends and plant enemies to make organic tomato gardening easier.