Generous friends

My husband came back the other day with boxes full of seedlings. He works sometimes for an English lady not far from here and she is an amazing gardener. This year she has a surplus of seedlings and instead of throwing them out she threw them, metaphorically at least, into his car. But not only that - she took the time to write instructions for each lot. And better still, clearly knowing how instructions tend to go missing (the washing machine does wonders for instructions in back pockets!) she wrote them on the boxes! Tomatoes, celery, brassicas, chard (which I'd forgotten to sow this year) - not to mention a huge bunch of beetroot and some rocket.

I potted on some of the tomatoes and they are very happy in the greenhouse until they are big enough to go in the garden - we also need to clear a space for them but that's in hand. The rest of the seedlings are waiting outside the kitchen next to the hosepipe so they get a decent water quota in this hot weather. They will be planted out when they've grown a little bigger. I've also asked Max to build some sort of frame over which I can put cabbage white proof netting - I am DETERMINED not to eat any more caterpillars this year! A huge thank you for your generosity.


I'm excited about the tomatoes (Gardener's Delight). For the past two years we've had a pretty measly crop of tomatoes and with the wet weather just about gave up. Hopefully this year the weather will give us a couple of dry days at least and with all the tomato plants in the garden we should get a decent crop. Quite apart from using tomatoes in salads I love having too many as they get cooked up and frozen for future tomatoe sauces. I also try to make a few pots of tomato ketchup - you will never buy ketchup again once you've tasted home made...even my children say so!
You can see a couple of melons growing next to the tomatoes in the greenhouse - we bought four at the local market and as an experiment I planted two in the greenhouse and two outside. No prizes for guessing which ones already has little tiny fruits on them.