compost suprise

I am sure many of you who make your own compost have experienced this.

The lovely compost that you have been making over the past year is then spread over the flower borders, greatly improving the soil and health of your plants.

Then as the summer progresses you find a plant that you did not sow in that border but you do recognise it.

A tomato plant. So instead of weeding it out,  you leave it there, no training or pinching out, just let it do its thing.

Then August and September come round and you have tomatoes ripening in the sun!

We have some of these growing in the potato patch and we have had a wonderful crop, plus more still ripening.

The strange thing is that, because of all the rain and damp weather we had in July and August, the potatoes have all suffered from blight, except the Sarpo blight resistant ones.

We have had to remove all the tops from the potatoes to save the crop. But the tomatoes, in the same family as potatoes are unaffected! Explain that.

climbing courgette

 For several years we have been trying to grow the climbing courgette variety Black Forest.

Each year it has failed to grow more than about 50cm.

This year we found another climbing variety Shooting Star. Success!

It has grown well and we have tied it to a support so it goes quite high.

The fruit from the "Shooting Star" are lovely thin and bright yellow. Also very delicious.

A definite must for next years planting.

Keeping on the yellow theme we have also had success with melons in the greenhouse. This variety called Emir are quite a small fruit just enough for 2 and are ripening and tasting great, really juicy.

Once again we entered several things into our local flower and produce show and won 2 firsts, 2 seconds and 2 thirds.

        The Firsts were for a brace of courgettes and my bowl of fruit. A successful year.