The first tomato seedlings have germinated, and are doing nicely. This is the time when wet weather would bring out the snails and slugs and wipe out all the baby tomatoes. Although we could really do with some rain right now, the dryness is happily keeping all the seedling munching monsters at bay.
These two trays are mainly old favourites such as Orange Banana tomatoes, that we’ve saved our own seed for, and the last few bought seeds in a few random packs from previous years. When I planted them, the weather was still a bit colder than now, so I planted ones that didnt matter too much. Since these 154 seeds went in, I have also planted 3 more trays – another 120, bigger compartments – of a wide range including Caro Rich that has more vitamin A than normal tomatoes, Cherokee Purple, huge purple fruit, and white cherry tomatoes which form 2 foot long trusses of fruit. Should be an interesting harvest this summer, plus we should have enough plants to give to a few friends who are just starting out here, or to swap with others.
I think we have close to 50 types of tomato seeds now, mainly heritage varieties, and we bought a few Coraçao do Bio plants, traditional portuguese type with big pinky fruit, at sunday market in tabua.
We’ve been seriously thinking about buying a proper glass greenhouse, although I’m still looking for plastic bendy pipe (if anyone has some spare lying around) to knock up a polytunnel. Whatever, we will hopefully be able to grow tomatoes and peppers through this coming winter, and get our seeds started off really early next year.
My two tea plants (Camelia Sinensis) have started growing again, after a winter of not. Great, I wonder how long it will be before we can start harvesting growing tips to make our own cuppas.
BACK GARDEN SEED SAVING
The best UK book on seed saving by top gardening writer Sue Stickland. She gives easy to follow crop-by-crop guidelines to help you save seed for yourself and varieties to look out for.
