We have fruit trees and raspberry canes in our little suburban garden. But never have I grown anything that actually needed tending.
This year however, in line with frugality and old fashioned virtues, I decided to become a distinctly 17th century huswife type person (not a huswif as I first thought you will note…which is something quite different).
I have always moaned and whinged about not being able to buy proper continental lumpy tomatoes here in the UK, all tomatoes here are bland, monotonous and watery. I want to have thick walled deeply flavoured tomatoes,suitable for making salads or rubbing on garlicky toast for bruschetti. So the answer was that these should be my things to grow.
I bought my seeds on eBay from Ladybird Gardens, a small nursery seller – I like to buy from independent sellers where I can for things like this, I buy too many things from Sainsbury’s just for convenience, so the more unusual things can be from the independent sector to help keep the biodiversity of shopping alive.
It was quite unnerving, we didn’t have a nice spring so it seemed later and later until I could get them out into their pots and grow bags. I swapped some seeds with Linda at With Knife and Fork for a couple of cherry tomato plants that she was able to spare, just to add a bit of variety.
And they grew!
So I have watered, tied up, carefully disbudded, trimmed leaves so they wouldn’t get too musty, picked off the slugs, watered again, fed and generally worried about my tomatoey babies. And now is the time to reap my little harvest..
Yumyumyum
Twitter: msgourmetchick
So impressed that you grew these all the way from seeds -very jealous!
Twitter: josordoni
replied:
thank you! you should try it – it isn’t difficult, and it’s very satisfying to eat things that you have nurtured yourself (not including your children or pets, of course…. π
They look lovely! I’ve picked lots out of the garden this week I’m doing big pans of tomato soup with them tomorrow :-))
Twitter: josordoni
replied:
I haven’t got enough for soup or stuff.. they will all be eaten just as they are. But I shall grow LOADS more next year π
Twitter: RobynVolker
I love that you photographed along the way. Perhaps we’re spoiled here in NY/NJ; we can get a huge variety of excellent tomatoes all season. Favoites this year are Russian Blacks and Sungold cherries. We eat as much tomato salad as humanly possible thru Sept.
Twitter: josordoni
replied:
well in theory, we can get a variety, but in practice they tend to taste the same, and a bit woolly at that. I don’t know if that is just being in town? But even when I buy from the farmer’s markets they don’t have the real zingy flavour you can get in the European market tomatoes. So it is delightful to eat these π
They look great. It’ so satisfying isn’t it?
Hope they tasted yummy π
Twitter: josordoni
replied:
It is RIDICULOUSLY satisfying.. we’ve had a few of the cherry toms, that are lovely to eat just as you pass through the kitchen, like sweeties, but the big lumpy ones are much more flavoursome. That bowl will be part of dinner tonight π