At the third exit....

The season just gets crazier. Due to a late sowing and planting I wouldn't expect my tomatoes to start colouring up yet based on 'normal' seasons, but last week the first ones started turning and now many more have followed suit. I haven't even thinned the foliage or had to hang up any ripe bananas! After several months of cold temperatures those few days of sunshine last month must have been enough to shock the fruits into ripening. It's a blessing in disguise as I can hopefully use up the fruits from the lower trusses which are usually not a great shape and will get plenty to choose from the 3rd and 4th trusses upwards. I certainly have many nice large shiny green fruits to come so I'm hopeful of tabling a set at Harrogate and Malvern this season. I've also got some cracking aubergines growing below the plants too.....which does make the watering a little awkward.

I pulled up all my 250g 'Setton' onions last night.....actually make that 150g onions as I only managed to salvage a dozen or so from this pile that might make me a set of 4 for the Millennium Class. They stopped growing when the rain stopped, basked in a few days of sun and basically said fuck it, we're ripe, dig us up before that wet stuff comes back. I shall have to make the best of a bad job as the Vento isn't much better.

With my leeks going to seed, my spuds being dogplop and my globe beet hardly germinating I am having to think of a plan B so i'm now turning my attention to other crops such as these Blyton Belle marrows which i'm tying to a sturdy framework of arching metal poles. I've taken off all embryo fruits thus far but fairly shortly the plants will be turning almost horizontally so I can then allow fruits to form. They will then hang down away from the spiky foliage and you'll get a blemish free skin with green colouring all the way round. In the past when i've trained them along the ground you will get one side of your marrow with a yellow face where it has been in contact with the ground. I tried putting a pane of glass between two bricks and growing the marrow on this with some success but it can be dangerous when you walk down the garden at night after a few bevvies!

My french beans 'Prince' timed for Malvern are ready for planting into large pots. I'll plant 3 to each of the pots that i've been growing the onions in and put these on the greenhouse staging for regular maintenance and titivation. Growing under cover should give blemish free pods. These plants come from seed provided by Ronnie Jackson who has won at Branch and National level. He grows them in his polytunnel borders but pots will have to suffice for me again.

And as I may have to rely on some lesser pointed crops to win a few quid this season i've started planting a few lettuce in succession. I've come up with this nifty little idea of some plastic covered wooden planks suspended at the ends on bricks. The plants are planted between the planks, themselves into 3" bottomless pots, the idea being that the roots grow through the pot into the soil below and the leaves rest on the clean surface of the plastic and don't get marked by the soil. The plants will be cut just below the bottomless pot and this allows me to wash the roots with a hose without splashing about too much soil onto the underside of the (hopefully very clean) leaves, The roots are wrapped in damp towelling and this keeps the lettuce fresh for a two or three day show no problem. Sometimes I really do get scared by the brilliance of my brain.

By the way if anyone's interested I'm selling a good line in cheap sat navs stolen (with some ease apparently) from thick northerners' vans. Let me know if you're in the market for one.