Honestly – Truthfully!
There was a “firmish” frost this morning – but this photo was taken yesterday and the flowers and green fruit were most definitely there – not the healthiest of plants – but hanging on regardless. The photo to show the gorgeous blue sky above is a wonderful calendar contrast to last year when it was all snow clouds overhead and drifts and ice underfoot! Will the real November please stand up?
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Who would have thought it? But here’s the evidence. Taken yesterday afternoon before the mist/fog really descended and made everything look very other worldly.
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These tomato flowers can be found on one of the few plants to survive blight.This picture was taken on 12th November! I’m not sure what to say about that – other than – tomato blossom in November? Whatever next?!
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Without the blight blip – could this have turned out to be the longest outdoor tomato growing season ever?
Outdoors, I still have a few plants with foliage – those mid October frosts were hard but not enough to get plants in sheltered positions. Indoors, I still haven’t put my heating on. I’ve given it a quick blast to make sure it still works – which it does – but it’s still all very mild.
There’s probably some big freezer cabinet door that’s being slowly cranked opened that will release all the wrong kind of weather in our direction – and I’ll soon be eating my words ( and the scattered frozen peas that fall out at the same time if it’s anything like my freezer) but for the time being, this year has been very odd for having all the right weather at the wrong times!
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And then at Wisley there was the greenhouse – which you used to be allowed to go into but sadly now just get to press a nose up at. So for the tomato grower who was after an olfactory day out – hoping to take in deep sniff-fulls of the warm, herby, CI3 hexanolness of it all – it is now instead the scentless whiff of disappointment.
Still, I did very much like the trusses of tomatoes hung out to ripen. If mistletoe is the winter bough under which all things kissing are ordained to happen – then I think tomatoes make the perfect bough of love for the summer season!
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For the cordons’ – what I suspect was a very upright line, earlier in the season, slumping a bit by now – but which of us aren’t! A cane for each plant and then some extra supporting canes – all tied along one length of rope. A tomato fence.
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Have you come across this as a tomato support? I don’t think I have. Four canes all tied at the top. It was a bit late in the season to tell as the plants were defintely on their way out – but I think there may have been a plant per corner. As an idea I like it. I think it might suit slower, more sedate vines than those adventurous see-you-at- the-top types like Sungold or Black Cherry. I think the variety here might be Roma or similar – which doesn’t need quite the same support but does benefit from something to stop it trailing along the ground. I wish I’d seen it in full fruit.
( and whilst technically it might not be a wigwam – it’s such a lovely word and there isn’t the need to use it very often – so I thought I’d give it an airing.)
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I haven’t managed to get to RHS Wisley very often this summer – and forgot to take my camera when I did. So didn’t get any shots of the Model Vegetable Garden in full swing. I did however get some pictures today which I will post next week. It was all very tail end. Sort of streamers strewn across the floor and empty bottles rolling under the table kind of thing. Not that it was messy, far from it. But when trees are showcasing their ‘look-at-me’ autumnal hues and bushes are laden with glinting berries – the veg patch is bound to look a bit drab and ‘yesterday’s thing’ in comparison.
But what I did find interesting was that blight had not affected the tomatoes plants – and that they had used Bordeaux Mix. I know it’s not for everyone – but if you do use it and are wondering what to use when it gets discontinued – then the RHS seem to be recommending Bayer’s Fruit and Vegetable Disease Control as a replacement product.
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With the first frost here I thought we’d feel the heat from the chilli show entries. This is my last photo from this year’s show and the chillies were next to the Cedrico crowd – it’s any colour as long as it’s red! But I love the gloss – and the different shapes and sizes especially when compared to their conforming neighbours!
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This is the largest class in terms of number of entries for tomatoes for the RHS Autumn show. So competition is stiff. However unlike Doggie Shows where handsome hounds have to have long names denoting sireing/dameing and proclaiming their illustrious pedigree – all ‘best in breed’ tomatoes seem to have to go by the name of Cedrico!
I counted 11 entries. 9 were Cedrico and 2 Alicante. I think I have got the photos in the right order of first, second, third and I think fourth prize. But for sure they were all Cedricococo!
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