Homegrown tomatoes are the best! We have to grow them in a glasshouse here in southern New Zealand but it's worth the effort.
When you grow tomatoes in a glasshouse you should really change the soil each year to avoid the build up of disease. We usually buy a load of superdirt which is great stuff if you don't think of where it came from (I won't go into details here :-) )
To this I add some peat, dolomite lime and long term slow-release fertilizer granules. The problem every year is what to do with the soil you've removed, we tend to spread it round the garden as a mulch.
Strangely this year I've got many plants of plum/Italian style tomatoes when I didn't plant any of that type of seed. I suspect it was a contaminated pack of seeds. Just hope they taste okay. I guess I can always preserve them if they're not good for salads.
Although it's probably cheaper in the long run to buy tomatoes from the supermarket I'll keep growing them, the taste is unbeatable!
Sunday, January 15, 2012
First tomato 5/365
Friday, January 13, 2012
Rain 3/365
It was sunny this morning, honest! In fact it's been sunny for most of the day. I left taking my daily photo too long so a rain photo is what you get, I do kind of like the watercolour effect it gives to my garden though.
Talking of gardens, I've spent most of the day harvesting - broad beans, raspberries and the tail end of the currants and weeding. I really need to get out into the garden more often!
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Breakfast 2/365
And because I started the 365 yesterday and didn't blog, there will be two posts in one day! Miracles never cease :-)
Breakfast with the newspaper....
I make bread almost every day, using a breadmaker as it makes it so easy and we much prefer the bread to the bought stuff. I should eat my crusts though!
It's rained here today, the first decent rain for over a month and it's certainly welcome as everything is getting dry.. It's been a great summer down here so far this year, unlike last year.
Blackcurrants 1/365
What a shock! A new post after almost 3 years!
I've started to do do a 365 picture a day project from my second Flickr photostream and it seemed a good opportunity to blog them at the same time.
The blackcurrants are ready to pick, we have several bushes and they give a good crop each year almost without fail. After the very messy of job of cleaning them (I try and farm this job out to other family members) they are frozen and used for jam and deserts. Mmmm.....