It's all about the tiny tomatoes this year

One of the great joys of having a balcony - even a tiny one - is having just enough space for a few planters and pots for salad leaves, herbs and now ... tomatoes. (And maybe just a few flowers, especially if they're edible!)

Summer 2018 - Balcony bush tomato

Last summer, as usual, I used the balcony to sow, grow and pot on my tomato plants into 10 litre pots (15 litres might have been better) with the intention of moving them down to the veg patch after hardening off.  As they grew, and I appreciated the ease of watering them in last summer's heatwave, I could see how well they responded to the warmth and attention they got by being close to hand.  There was no problem with weekly feeding (#feedonfriday) as I had everything I needed nearby.  And, once they started fruiting, I loved that I could pop outside and pick a few cherry tomatoes to add to a salad - or to eat as a quick snack - without interrupting my work for long.

Even in those 10 litre pots I had a selection of tomatoes to pick from all summer long.  One bush cherry tomato plant gave up its last fruit in mid November, although that was probably a fluke given the hot summer and extended warm autumn we had here in the UK.

So now I'm hooked. There will be balcony tomatoes again this year - some small, some tall - but they're all suitable for growing in pots, containers or 'a windowsill garden' which I think sounds rather charming. I'll fit as many as I can on the balcony and, if they all germinate, pop a few next to the veg patch and hopefully have some to give away.

Sowing and growing with peat free Dalefoot compost

I've only just sown the seeds, putting up to 6 seeds of each variety in a 9cm pot filled with Dalefoot Wool Compost for Seeds. When they've got their first set of true leaves, the tomato babies can be pricked out into individual 9cm pots of Dalefoot Wool Compost for Veg and Salads.  Once the roots fill those pots, I'll pot them on into a size bigger pot and then into the final plant pot when first flowers appear.

I'm really quite excited to reach that final planting out stage as I've been gifted a bag of Dalefoot's new Wool Compost for Tomatoes. The nutrient rich compost has been formulated so that there is 'No Need to Feed' (awesome) through the entire season, plus with 50% less watering thanks to the wool content, there are time and ecological savings there too. Hot summer or not, using less water is a positive step for the planet's dwindling resources.

I've been impressed with Dalefoot products in the past so I'm confident that this latest addition to the Dalefoot canon will deliver on its promises. They're now fully accredited by the Soil Association for their organic peat free composts; not only that but the company are actively involved in work to restore peat bogs. What I hadn't fully understood was the extent to which removing peat from the land contributes to climate change and, by leaving peat in place, water quality is maintained and natural flood prevention prevails. Sounds to me like a compelling reason to use peat free compost. But I digress ...

My tiny tomato choices for 2019

There's plenty of time (until the end of May) to sow tomatoes, bearing in mind that freshly picked will always taste better than shop bought, plus you get that lovely smell from the (slightly poisonous) leaves.  (No? Just me, then.)

These are the plants that I'm growing.

• Cherry Falls, Mr Fothergill's - 'perfect for outside baskets and tubs'
• Balconi Red,  Thompson & Morgan - 'plant height 12", very sweet, for indoor and outdoor cropping'
• Minibel from Johnsons - 'very compact, outdoor plants ideal for patio pots' 
• Lizzano F1, Marshalls - 'Prolific cropping hanging basket variety' - perfectly shaped to fill and spill.
• Rainbow Blend, T&M, as above - 'early ripening, good crop throughout the summer'. But here's an anomaly I didn't spot before: the pack says plant height 8" but the website tells me the plant grows to 200cm or 78.7 inches. Curious. Also, 5 seeds for £3.69? I must have had my head in the clouds on that day but at 74p a seed, they'd better all germinate!
• Red Currant, Dobies Rob Smith Heritage Veg range - 'very disease resistant tiny tomatoes. Good tolerance to cooler temperatures'. Hardly changed since found growing wild on a Peruvian beach in 1707 but, oh dear, another cordon that I missed. Will grow to 1.5 or 2 metres. But still okay in a pot. That's alright then.

And these, all from Marshalls, in a press pack from the Garden Press Event:

• Patio Plum - a baby plum with 'bite' and 'sharp acidic flesh that gives a real kick'
• Summerlast F1 - one for the patio or window-garden, late blight resistance. Harvest by the punnet!
• Arielle F1 - 'Grow your own sun dried tomatoes'. Fruits will dry on the vine if not harvested, and start to look like raisins.  Or sun-dried tomatoes. Also a cordon, grows to 4ft.

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For clarity: Apart from the Thompson & Morgan seeds which I bought when drifting through the shop at Kew Gardens, all the other packets were given to me to trial after chatting to the companies at the Garden Press Event.
I'm not affiliated to any of the companies so when I review the plants at the end of the year, my opinions will be entirely impartial.

A Sunday stroll around the Veg Patch

A quick blog post from me this chilly but sunny Sunday morning as I have strawberries to plant and a herb garden to sort out.

Huge sage in a pot at the southern end of the veg patch this morning

We've certainly had some weather this week - warm sunshine, chill winds, blue skies, grey skies, rain and even hail, all in the last few days. There may have been thunder at one point. I keep humming that Disney song about April Showers and hoping for another warm summer like last year.

I woke early to a chill, blue-ish sky sort of day and, given recent unpredictable weather, thought I'd start with a stroll around the veg patch with my camera. A lot can happen in a week and I've not spent much time there as I've been planting up the new layout of the other garden I look after, the Car Park Garden, a space that I can actually look out onto.

So what's happened while my eyes were averted? The veg patch is looking lovely having positively burst into blossom. Chive and wild garlic buds are shooting up, peony stems are now about 12 inches high, sweet cicely herb is in flower, and lovage and comfrey are growing with a vengeance. I say vengeance because both really need to be kept in check. 

There was a lot of colour from spring flowers (although the tulips have mostly come up blind this year and the daffs are pretty much finished), a few bees and ladybirds, and a surprise in the form of my first asparagus spears popping their heads up.  It won't be long before I'm enjoying fresh purple spears with a poached egg for breakfast - yum! It seems early for asparagus but it's only a week ahead of last year, when we'd already had a couple of weeks of very warm weather to tempt the spears into action.

Purple broccoli has now finished. I was buzzed by several bees as I dug them up - they'd been enjoying the flowers but I need to clear the space for this year's crops. And I've left a kale plant to flower for them. I'll collect the kale seeds to grow some micro greens later on.

As expected, the Morello cherry trees are now smothered in white blossom, as are the pear and quince trees. Some calm weather to encourage pollinators to linger would be good but with a ground level nectar bar from forget me nots, honeywort, honesty, achillea and erysimum flowers to feed on, would they notice the clouds of blossom above?

I spotted the Honesty (Lunaria annua) seedlings last summer and gave them room to grow.  Lunaria was introduced to the garden a few years ago because I love the papery seed pods at the end of the year and bees love the flowers. And as they're a biennial, the plants flower much earlier than annuals - one way to have a succession of flowers in the garden!

A little bit of Honesty ... 

I'm very behind with seed sowing but now that warmer weather is promised (at least for the next couple of weeks), I'll be opening up the seed box this week and possibly also planting out my overwintered sweet peas.  It's supposed to be 19°C/69°F by next weekend - I don't want to tempt fate but I think I'll leave my sunhat within easy reach.