
Harvest time in the Tidy Garden.
This is our second year using the Square Foot Gardening method & a selection of pots to grow our veg but I confess that I haven’t tended the patch as diligently as I would have liked….something that I will correct next year.

Let’s quickly skip by the sweetcorn… the heat, humidity & stillness of summer went to my head & I forgot to give Mother Nature a hand by tapping the tassels. Result was poor quality, 2 inch long short cobs.

Regular stalkers may recall the black tomato ‘Indigo Rose’ that the good folk at Suttons asked me to trial back in April.
They are ‘naturally cross-bred from native tomatoes found in the Galapagos & Peru & come grafted onto vigorous rootstock to give strong plants & high yield.
They’re naturally resistant to early blight and have high levels of lycopene and anthocyanins found in so-called ‘super foods’.

According to Suttons they ’should take about 93 days from planting for the fruit to be fully ripe. They start out green before sunlight turns them black. At this stage they will be as hard as bullets. As they ripen the fruits will soften and start turning red, from the bottom up. At this stage they are ready for picking however the longer you leave them then the sweeter they will taste. When they are fully ripe the skin beneath the calyx will be red but they can certainly be eaten before this final stage’.

Well here we are 6 months on. Yes…there’s an amazingly high yield but I almost lost the will to live waiting for them to ripen.
These were all picked today, most still have green bottoms so will have to be ripened indoors.
As for the taste, sorry Suttons, they were quite bland.
So disappointing after all this time.

Meanwhile, carrots, cucumbers , broad beans & strawberries have been a huge success…Yay!

Happy Harvesting!