A Ripe Tomato Would Be Good

Friday was a dry windy day with a reasonable amount of sunshine.

Whilst our crops have fared well under our weed control fabric a few other crops haven’t done so well or are very late producing. We are still waiting to pick a runner bean. I did plant them late due to the exceptionally cold spring but for some reason they have been very slow to grow even through the warm weather of July. Perhaps I didn't keep them supplied with enough water when it was very dry for the first three weeks of the month.

We're still waiting for a ripe tomato, well that’s not quite correct, a ripe tomato that doesn’t have blossom end rot. 

This is a variety called Sioux which seems to have been particularly susceptible to blossom end rot in our home greenhouse. Looking more closely the rather flattened shape of the tomato is a clue to something not being right and viewed from beneath it’s not a pretty sight.  

In the greenhouse on the plot Sioux appears to be free from any problems and has an excellent crop of green tomatoes. The jury’s out on this variety.

Our plums too are very late. It’s not that we’ve a shortage of fruit as our three plum trees are loaded. By this time plum picking is normally well under way but not this year.

To finish on a more successful crop although we haven’t harvested any aubergines yet we actually do have fruits on our mini aubergine Jackpot F1.

Most years we try a few aubergine plants without any success. The plants normally grow well and produce flowers but that’s it, never any fruits but this variety is setting fruit. We’re not sure how big the aubergines should be when picked. This one’s the size of a hen’s egg.

As it makes a good looking pot plant for the greenhouse maybe we should treat fruits as a bonus.

Copyright: Original post from A Gardener's Weather Diary http://ossettweather.blogspot.co.uk/ author M Garrett