In spite of the slow start to spring it’s been a great season for growing tomatoes and to ensure bumper crops again next season I’ve been setting aside some of the choicest tomatoes for seeds.
Tomato seeds are encased in a gelatinous type sac which prevents them from sprouting whilst inside the fruit therefore this needs [...]
When I wrote to the NZ Gardener recently to make them aware of my bumper crop of tomatoes I certainly didn’t expect my letter to be made into a full page feature. You could say I almost “fell off my ladder” when the neighbour dropped by to show me their copy (details are on pages [...]
Its been about 14 weeks now since I planted my first tomatoes and at last, they are ripening in reasonable numbers. I picked the first of the tomatoes about 3 weeks ago but they didn’t compare to yesterday’s harvest. I’m tickled pink (as in Brandywine Pink) with the results so far, since these are just [...]
Do you ever wonder where all the bees have gone? It’ s no easy task to find bees whereas not many years back they were everywhere plying their all important trade.
I can remember many an occasion when one of our children would come storming into the house hollering that they had trodden on a bee [...]
Now that the Christmas and New Year’s festivities are over I thought it time to see how my two trial tomatoes are progressing. Since my post of the 18th of December all the tomatoes excluding the one below have received another generous dose of worm juice however I’m now applying it with a watering can. [...]
It’s been almost six weeks since I planted my main crop of my tomatoes and now that the warm summer weather has finally arrived they’re racing away.
My post of the 5th November “How to grow bigger and better tomatoes using worm juice“ covered the subject of using this as an organic fertiliser. Since then [...]
For the 30 years I’ve been growing vegetables tomatoes have always had pride of place in my garden as I enjoy growing them and love eating them. As mentioned in a previous post, this season I have planted six different tomato varieties so hopefully some bumper crops are not too far away.
With two bath tub [...]
One wet day last week I decided to plant out some tomato seedlings with the hope that the weather was going to improve. My decision was on the mark as we’ve had a number of fine days since then.
After planting about 15 seedlings from a total of 33 I looked back on my handiwork and [...]
The first few weeks of spring weather have been rather fickle so it’s been a matter of do I go ahead and plant or hold back for a little longer. My first row of carrots came to naught as we’ve had so many days of rain and the ground became water logged.
A week back I [...]
For those semi shaded areas in your garden where nothing wants to grow the humble renga lily is well worth consideration. Other than having to deal to the slugs that take delight in shredding it’s leaves the renga lily requires almost zero maintenance.
Some years ago I purchased some 20 or so plants from a local [...]
