"sacha" wrote

I've just been down to the big greenhouse and picked about 30 tomatoes.
What a joy to be able to do this and the smell of a ripe tomato is
fabulous.

We picked the first from our hanging basket "Tumblers" over a week ago, and
now, quite quickly, have built up a worrying stock of them in the fridge.

I now understand why they are called tumblers because one nearly did onto
the ground when it broke it's stem. Luckily I saw it whilst it still had a
small bit of bark/skin attached and staked it so it couldn't fall and break
completely. Having cut off all the large leaves to reduce transpiration it's
now ripening it's little tomatoes quickly.

The ones out on the allotment are also beginning to produce ripe toms.
Lesotto, a blight resistant bush tomato which produces small fruit, has also
started to produce ripe fruit in the last week but they have soft skins and
split very easily. The larger fruited ones, Ferline, Fantasio and Black
Russian have fruit that is certainly beginning to change colour but will
take probably another week to start yielding ripe fruit.

I have no doubt I will have better luck offering them to the neighbours than
I've had with the excess runner beans. :-)
--
Regards. Bob Hobden.
Posted to this Newsgroup from the W of London, UK