Tuesday wasn't as good weather wise as we've been used to. We had a little light rain around lunchtime and the afternoon was dull and cloudy although it remained mild. The forecast is for the settled weather to have broken down by the weekend.
Last week when we visited RHS Harlow Carr we had a look around their kitchen garden to see if we could spot any good ideas that we could copy or anything a little out of the ordinary. In the disappointment of finding blight on our potatoes I forgot about these two interesting ideas in their kitchen garden.
I haven’t seen this method of growing tomatoes before. The tomatoes have been planted in reasonably sized pots that are half filled with compost. These are growing on bales of wet straw where they presumably get all their moisture from and are fed in the small amount of compost in the pot. I have to admit I've only just spotted the information sheet describing this growing method hanging from the greenhouse roof. It will be interesting to visit in August to see if the plants produce a good crop.
The second thing we spotted was a tomato and potato plant called a TomTato.
This sounds like a pretty good idea but presumably you wouldn't get a potato harvest until the top of the plant has finished producing its tomato crop. As these are growing outside I would have thought that would be towards the end of September or even the middle of October. I wonder how much the grafted plants cost?
These are the TomTato growing in large hessian sacks. Once again it will be interesting to see how these are performing on our next visit to the gardens.
Posts
there certainly are tips and tricks you can pick up from other gardeners, I like the tomato idea but not having a greenhouse on the plot will have to give it a miss
ReplyDeleteThe other problem is you need a pretty tall greenhouse to incorporate the height of the straw bale and tomato plant.
DeleteGardener's world trialled growing tomatoes in half a pot of compost last year, the pots weren't stood on straw bales though. The Tomtatoes look interesting, that's something I've never heard of before.
ReplyDeleteI've found out that Thompson and Morgan had TomTatos for sale in spring at £15.00 per plant. They'll have to come down a lot in price before I risk trying one. Seem to remember that trial on Gardener's World wasn't all that successful. Good tasting but few tomatoes if I remember correctly.
DeleteThose are two very interesting ideas. I've seen quite a few experiments with tomatoes on TV but haven't seen the straw used. Bet it will work well. The tom-potato doesn't seem to be logical for our climate? Would be interesting to see how it works.
ReplyDeleteFrom our experiences this year potatoes and tomatoes together spell disaster if early blight is about.
Delete