A brief glimpse of Spring at last.

[Stephen]

Thanks for the offer but I planted me tomato seeds yesterday and there's a lovely girl called Alexis at BBC South who tells me all about the weather every night

What variety of toms are you growing qb

[qbman1]

Gardener's Delight and Sungold. We much prefer the smaller ones - proper tomato flavour and always do well for me

[Raybosailor]

Gardeners Delight for us too gbman, if your away a lot like us and can't rely on the kids to water them properly the small ones tend to fair better than Moneymaker or Alicante types which suffer from end rot and splitting. They freeze well too don't they ?

[Stephen]

Good choice.

I'm growing Gardeners Delight and Piccolo along with some Mini bell mixed peppers.

There was a good article in last months Gardeners World mag about growing tomato's. They done tests using various growing methods and got the best results/yield using grow bags, and only watering once a week. Apparently only watering the plants once a week stresses it into putting all it's energy and goodness into the fruit rather than the plant.

[Raybosailor]

Stephen didn't Monty Don try that in one of his trials without much success ?

[Stephen]

Stephen didn't Monty Don try that in one of his trials without much success ?

I don't know Ray. I'm going by the indepth article in last months GW magazine.

[Raybosailor]

I will try this with one plant (or Cheryl will she is the gardener) that way you only lose part of the crop if things go wrong.

[oldbluefox]

There was a good article in last months Gardeners World mag about growing tomato's. They done tests using various growing methods and got the best results/yield using grow bags, and only watering once a week. .

Watering once a week? We looked after a neighbour's plants once whilst they were away. We watered them every day but on one day we were out but decided it wouldn't matter, we would feed them the next day. When we went in they were all lying flat and gasping for life!!! What an awful feeling.
All was not lost though. We sellotaped them upright and watered well and next morning you couldn't tell anything had happened.
I love home-grown tomatoes but they do demand a lot of looking after (unless you have an amenable neighbour) so you are tied to home. Once a week watering sounds good though.

[GillD46]

You do have to be careful not to over water tomatoes - I did just that last year and ended up with end rot - fortunately I managed to salvage them after a VERY severe pruning.

[Stephen]

Over watering can also cause the fruit to split as well.


Well the back grass just had it's first cut of the season. And doesn't look bad if I say so myself

[wolfie]

Our grass looks like it needs cutting too, alas!

Thought I could enjoy our spring bulbs for a while yet before that needed doing, BUT today we have had the tree chaps,(arborewotsits!), around to sort out quite a number of trees, I think they did about 8 at least, and it pretty obvious that the grass was on the way up and so were they weeds!!!

Spring has truly sprung here.

[Raybosailor]

I usually strip the mower down and give it a service before the first cut but the conditions were too good to miss yesterday so I went for it.
Did my service today and when I ground the blades it was quite evident that this will probably be the last grind so the old wallet will be taking a bash pretty soon. Will have to keep Cheryl out of the Pandorda shop on Azura next month as Mower World are hot favourites.

All that glitters is not always gold,
so in my wallet the cash I will hold.
Pandora goods cost too much brass,
and I need a blade to cut the grass.

[Onelife]

I think we here in Worcestershire must have a band of cold air sitting over the top of us as l haven't seen one open daffodil yet.