Friday 26 December 2008

things to come

Today my sister asked how much of Christmas dinner came from my garden.  Well, not much really.  A few different fresh herbs - Thai basil, sweet basil, and thyme.  A lot of the rest is still just chugging along, so I thought I'd share a few of the latest developments.

My yellow tomatoes are ripening more and more and finally starting to taste decent.  The leaves were starting to turn yellow which was worrying me, but I figured out it's because the were short on Nitrogen.  Nitrogen is the stock-standard plant nutrient that makes leaves grow, and the soil I'd planted my yellow tomatoes in was actually "pre-used" potting soil - not a good idea.  As I found out, it had run out of nutrients.  But I've given it a good drink of liquid fertilizer and it's perked back up again.

Whilst I'm on the subject, where Nitrogen feeds the leaves, Potassium feeds the "fruits."  So all of the veggies below have gotten a sprinkle of sulphate of potash, concentrated potassium, which is meant to help make big, tasty fruit.

http://www.alexareynolds.com/gardenblog08/fruittumble.JPGI've also gotten my first baby Tumbler Tom tomato coming in.  It'll be about a month before I start harvesting these babies, but they should be nice and sweet from the heat of January.






http://www.alexareynolds.com/gardenblog08/fruitbetterboy.JPGMy other tomato, the Better Boy, is setting a fair few fruit.  It won't make as many as the cherry tomatoes but they should be nice and big, your traditional round red style.  This is the biggest on on the bush so far, and still growing.  They probably won't ripen until February.



http://www.alexareynolds.com/gardenblog08/fruitjalapeno.JPGNext to the tomatoes I have a jalapeno plant.  It started out a bit slowly from the cool weather and it was also in pretty poor potting soil, but I've now got my first baby jalapenos on it.  Just look at this lovely!

http://www.alexareynolds.com/gardenblog08/fruitpotimarron.JPGAnd around the back my pumpkin vines are going bonkers.  There are at least twelve baby pumpkins and more coming, if I keep letting the vine grow.  Here are the two biggest ones I could find, and they still have the flowers on them.

A bit of sad news though, for some reason two of the pumpkins are shriveling up.  I think this means they weren't pollinated properly but I'm not sure.  I hope it's just these two and that I don't lose all of them!

http://www.alexareynolds.com/gardenblog08/fruitshrivel1.JPG

http://www.alexareynolds.com/gardenblog08/fruitshrivel2.JPG

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