How are the veggies coming along?

[sime42]

9 hours ago, scbk said:

Ripe blackcurrants aswell!

I don't know what the variety is, these bushes came out of my parents garden when I had to redo their soakaway in 2020. At the time I dug open, but had to wait for the quarry to reopen after the first covid lockdown.

 

The bushes must be 30yrs+ old, they were there when I was a kid

 

 

 

Nice Blackcurrants. What do you do with them? Jam? I need to get a plant or two.

 

Gooseberries are doing very well this year, and Boysenberries have been extremely productive, (until.tbe bloody black birds found them). Berries are some of the few things that have actually enjoyed the crappy wet, cold weather this year at least. Not strawberries though, too cold outside.

 

I'm seeing lots of unpollinated tomato flowers as well, a bad sign of things to come. Plenty on green toms as well though so hopefully they'll be turning soon.

 

 

 

[peds]

When you say unpollinated flowers, is it just that they are still present among developing fruits, or is there some other visual tell?

 

I was taught (at tomato growing school, no less), that a good practice to get into is to shake each truss, gently but with a firm intent, to scatter pollen; or if you aren't too far into double figures of plants, just walk along and tickle each flower with a small, soft paintbrush. Sounds like an effort, and it is (just like many of the other repetitive tasks associated with tomatoes), but the noticeable uptick in yield makes it worth it.

 

Edit: the paintbrush technique also let's you reliably maintain the genetics of heirloom varieties and avoid cross-pollination if you are growing many different types in one tunnel, or indeed, allows you to cross-pollinate in a targeted fashion, if you are making your own varieties. Just aim for very new flowers, ideally mature but not yet unfurled, slice the poor thing open to reveal its naughty bits, and tickle the pollen from your chosen donor onto it. Then isolate and label the flower or truss, and harvest the seeds when ripe. 

Edited July 17 by peds

[sime42]

Yes, just empty spent flowers amongst set, developing fruit. I don't think you could ever tell before that.

 

Tomato growing school?! Wow. I've heard hand pollination suggested a few times now, but always been too lazy. Maybe time to embrace it and deploy the little brush.

 

 

[peds]

Even just a good jiggle when the majority of flowers on each truss are open helps, and it can easily be done with the spare hand during watering, so it really shouldn't take up any more time. Lance or nozzle in one hand, hose wrapped around your leg to bring it along and free up your other hand, so it can do other tasks as you move down the line. Pinching off shoots, inseminating flowers, rehoming pests, etc. 

[AHPP]

The bee comment last night made me think of artificial insemnation but I thought I was being silly. 

 

A friend of mine used to work in a commercial greenhouse, peds. I was telling him about my mum's reliably excellent cherry tomato yield from her garden variety garden greenhouse. 

"Oh yeah? How many artics is she doing a day?"

Snide bastard. 

[peds]

I'd say the little drone bees from Black Mirror would be the way forward for artificial pollination on that kind of scale. Plus, you could task them with all sorts of other things!

 

[AHPP]

 

No veggies yet (besides some historic potatoes under a drip in the tunnel). Sailor's been weeding a pair of neglected beds while thankfully paying no attention to my mate's geese. I've been fixing fences, gutters, water butts etc. Running out of major infrastructure projects to do now. I'll have to actually garden. 

Edited 16 hours ago by AHPP

[Doug Tait]

He's a handsome chap.

Looks like a lot of work went into a corrugated roof there as well!

[AHPP]

Not a single, solitary drip through that. Truly a silk purse from a sow's ear 

[sime42]

What are you planning to actually garden?

 

Don't worry, there's only a few weeks of prevarication left and then it'll be the of the season anyway, (for sowing stuff). Then you can relax again for 6 months. You could probably still buy some veg plants, to save a fair bit of time.