Little Miracles Do Happen

It's been touch and go with my tomatoes this year. They didn't get off to a very good start when the compost I pricked them out in to was rubbish, the seedlings turned yellow and didn't grow. I quickly repotted them in to a different brand of compost and they rallied round really well putting on lots of growth and greening up beautifully.

Then came the Arggghhhhhhh. Disaster! post telling of how the plants had been left inside a hot greenhouse without any ventilation. Needless to say, they weren't in the best of health when they were discovered but I managed to save a couple of them which weren't in too bad a state. I was going to dispose of the rest of them but I left them in the greenhouse just to see if they made any sort of recovery, and they have. Well, some of them have.

In the meantime, I'd bought a few tomato plants from a local plant sale, so my final tomato count for this year is as follows:

Greenhouse Plants
Costoluto Fiorentino
Gardeners Delight
Alicante (bought from the local plant sale)

Outdoor Plants
Costoluto Fiorentino
Gardeners Delight
Ailsa Craig X 2

Outdoor Bush Plants
Maskotka X 2 (bought from the local plant sale)
Gartenperle (bought from the local plant sale)
Ildi
Totem

I got them all put in to their final positions at the weekend. I'm using tomato growbags cut in half for the outdoor indeterminate, or cordon, tomatoes. I used this method last year and it worked really well.

The bush type tomatoes have been planted up in pots which contain compost from a growbag.

I bought some self watering containers at the back end of last year for the three tomatoes I'm growing in the greenhouse, these have also been filled with the compost from a growbag. Unfortunately, there was a problem when I came to fit one of the watering tubes in to the container, it didn't fit, so I could only plant up two of them. I got in touch with the company who supplied them and they've sent me some replacement tubes. It was super quick service, great customer service. Things do go wrong with orders sometimes, but I don't mind so long as a company takes ownership of the problem and sorts it out without delay. I'll be planting up that last container this weekend. The two plants already in these containers are ones I grew myself, you can see the damage to the lower leaves which was caused when they'd been left in the greenhouse without ventilation but the new growth looks strong and healthy.

Lots of my tomato plants are now flowering, especially the bush ones. It won't be long until they're setting fruit.

Now that the tomato plants have taken over half the greenhouse, I've had to have a bit of a reshuffle. The staging is still in place on the right hand side for the time being and this is holding seed trays. I've sown some dwarf French beans, some wallflowers and some sweet williams. They've actually all germinated since this photo was taken.

Down the centre of the greenhouse is my little peach tree, can you see the peaches hanging from the branches? My fig tree is also here and so are a couple of my cucumbers. I'm growing two varieties of cucumber this year, Mini Munch and Crystal Lemon, I've got two plants of each and I shall be trying one of each in the greenhouse and one of each outdoors just to see which do best. I wasn't going to bother with Crystal Lemon this year as I'm not keen, but they were such a big hit with my dad last year that I thought I'd grow some for him again. The staging will soon be removed so that the cucumbers can be positioned in its place and I'll move the two little trees outdoors.

Everything else has now been moved out of the greenhouse and most things are now settled in at the allotment, just a few things left to plant, including my leeks. I still need to start off some more climbing beans to replace the ones which the slugs have eaten, that's another job for this weekend.