Taking into account how many litres of water I had to carry through the flat from the kitchen to the balcony during the hot weeks of the summer, I’m not sure the harvest from my tomato plants this year can be considered “worth” the trouble. Only three or four fruits (did you know they are fruits, not vegetables?) reached even a shade of red while still on the plant. Today I had to harvest the rest, green as they were, or the next wind would just have scattered them over the balcony floor.
22 July. The tomato plants are the big one in the right hand corner and the smaller one in the black pot to the left of it.
17 August (“big” tomatoes)
8 September (the same pair as above)
13 September - Cherry tomatoes from the small plant (the size of cherries)
Yesterday I ate the red ones. To be quite honest, the ones I buy at the supermarket taste better…
This was my first attempt where I live now to grow tomatoes. At my previous flat, the balcony was a little bigger and more sheltered, but had less sun. I never managed to get the tomatoes red on the plant there either. But some years I got enough of green ones to make a few jars of green tomato marmalade from them. The recipe includes lemons and ginger (and sugar, of course).
Well, this year at least I got a blog post out of them!
5 comments:
Well, they LOOK really pretty. They should taste better than store bought ones, though! How strange! I think it's something that you could grow any at all on a balcony! And yes, they made a good post!
what a wonderful little garden you have on your deck. the green ones will ripen if you have a sunny place to sit them, or maybe even just in the fruit bowl. they probalbly don't get quite enough sun to ripen on the plant. the salad looks delish and it did make a really good post
Yoiu are lucky if your supermarket tomatoes taste good. Most of ours are very watery and tasteless. Daughter Helen grows her own and they were much more flavoursome. Perhaps it's worth thinking about a different variety next year.
Should perhaps add that the tomatoes I buy are usually small cherry or plum tomatoes... As for the ones from my balcony, the problem is as Sandray says, they didn't get to ripen while still on the plant. Our summer just isn't long enough.
I used to grow tomatoes on Lewis which has a pretty short summer but I grew them partly in a conservatory. They ripened well but I can't recall the variety.
Post a Comment