Monday, April 16, 2007

Tomato Audit

I know I've still not covered the weekend yet, but counted the toms tonight, so thought I'd chat about them first.

A few of them had gone a little pale and yellow, probably running out of goodness in their wee cramped pots. The advice from the GYO peeps was a magnesium sulphate foliar feed.

Having asked the question (where do I get it), trotted off up to the pharmacy at lunch time and purchased a 200g tub of Epsom salts for the bargain price of £1.29. If this works, it will be the bestest £1.29 I've spent so far this season !

None of them are in a really bad way, but more than a few looked as if they could do with a pick me up. I'm just not ready to put them in their black buckets yet. The g/h isn't ready, I'm not 100% convinced the auto vent is opening and closing as it should and I've still got far too many other things in there to be able to move the toms in permanently.

One of the problems I've encountered was sowing some varieties direct into milk bottle pots ! They've grown like mad, but now they're running out of steam in the original compost and some are so tall (hmmmmm the poor Tigerellas are somewhat leggy) and the only way to plant them deep would be to stick them in the black buckets now.

The overnight temps in the g/h have been around 40-50oF and I'm not convinced that's warm enough to leave them in the g/h overnight. I'd be devastated if I lost ANY even though this was the actual count. One is still a rogue, but think it's been identified as a Tres Cantos.

Tigerella - 6 - Poor leggy creatures, really are very lanky - Some from Liska, some from a new pack - sadly didn't label which was which. The best will be Liska's naturally. :-P
Pineapple - 6 - My most specialist babies this year as they are Supersprout's
Legend - 4 - don't know where these came from but I had a whole pack so I may have bought them ! :-O
Gartenperle - 5 (still to be potted up and they're not looking good atm)- left over from last year's packet
Cream Sausage - 5 - from my Mummy - Mum thought they had "Banana" in their name, but Supersprout and I thought that Cream Sausage was a closer match.
Muchamiel - 3 - from the lovely Biscombe
Tres Cantos - 4 (including the rogue)- Biscombe again
Black cherry - 2 - ain't got the foggiest, so if anyone's reading this that sent them to me - many many thanks and please put your hand up so I know ! lol
Gardeners Delight - 8 - cover of a mag packet
Harbinger - 6 - lord only knows
Ferline - 3 - Lishka
Marmande - 2 - Lishka
Golden Sunrise - 2 - Lishka (i think)

What I'm going to do with them all, I haven't got a scooby doo and I've made a new season's resolution to carefully note anything that anyone sends me lol

Anyway, enough of the gabbing, here's some pics of the jungle.

















































While I was uploading the pics there, I suddenly remembered that on Saturday I sowed some San Marzano Lungo (a plum type), Santium (an early bush - which is handy as i've sown them so late lol), and Tomato Tumbling Tom (one for the hanging basket). How could I forget !

I'll make a note to remember how the foliar feed goes and let you know.

And oh how I love running my fingers through the leaves and sniffing! ahhhhhhhhh - perfume !

Cheerio and good luck to everyone with their toms.

7 comments:

Unknown said...

Tomato's yuk........... what a waste of all that effort :-))

Looks like their taking over the house as well

MrsKP said...

You have no soul.

:-P

Unknown said...

yep

only good for three things

sauce
bloody mary's
heinz soup

:-)

MrsKP said...

philistine ! by the time I've finished, I'll be supplying Heinz.

:-)

Unknown said...

wouldn't surprise me

keep up the good work :-)

MrsKP said...

aye aye cap'n :-)

Unknown said...

ahhhhhh.......recognition at last :-))