Sunshine and weeds

5 comments

What a difference a few days of sun has made to my tomatoes! For weeks there’s been a handful of orange-ish fruit dangling around the bottom of the plant but over the last 4 days a wave of orange has been making its way upwards – slowly but surely.

Sunblush tomatoes ripening

Strange though, that this ripening has only started on my ‘Sunblush’ tomatoes – except for the 3 that have been a terracotta pink for weeks now, my ‘Nectar’ tomatoes remain resolutely green.

I spent the day before the sun arrived in the garden doing what I have been doing all summer – weeding. The rain seems to help everything except my poor courgettes stay healthy – especially weeds; and I’ve found myself facing the strangest of decisions: How big does a weed have to be before I dig it out?

I normally start with great gusto, removing anything green which I didn’t plant. As I progress though, thoughts of effort vs reward pop into my head and I start vetting weeds as to whether they’re worthy of being uprooted. I suppose a benefit of having such a small patch is that I could feasibly remove all weeds as they appear, I just found it strange that I started to make criteria for what I would dig up.

Nectar tomatoes not ripening

3 Aug, 2007
2 likes

Comments

Weemamabell

Thats great Peter , not one of mine have turned red yet ! I cant help but wonder what next summer is going to bring ? lol

4 Aug, 2007

Tussiemussie

They look delicious! Did you do anything to avoid blight or have you just been lucky? I have just lost all my outdoor tomatoes to blight, and it got the aubergines too, same family?

4 Aug, 2007

Spritzhenry

I do try to keep on top of the weeds and hoick them out when they are tiny, because if I don't, and the weather turns for a few days, they will have grown out of all proportion. I can pull out baby nettles without gloves, too. Weeds also hide under other plants and sneakily seed themselves...so when I'm cutting the edges of the grass, I take my trug and trowel and weed as I go. Crazy person that I am, I also actually ENJOY sitting on my kneeling mat in the sun weeding a flower bed! This is partly due to the good soil we have, I can pull at a weed and it comes out roots and all - such a change from gardening on clay and flint back in Kent! :-) P.S. my tomatoes are ripening too but have very little flavour this year. :-(

4 Aug, 2007

Tussiemussie

The sunlight imparts the sweetness Spritz and we have been short of that till now.

5 Aug, 2007

Peter

Weemamabell - What a difference a few hundred miles makes :o) I didn't do anything to prevent blight - just lucky I guess but I've found the same as Spritz that my toms aren't quite as sweet (we've obviously had a lack of sun too). I've found that I enjoy the weeding too by the way, just being outside and getting my fingers dirty.

6 Aug, 2007

Add a comment