Brown Thumb

 Moon over my tomatoes, a couple weeks ago.  The weather has been warm and beautiful for the past fortnight, and days and nights have been clear. Just lovely.

 Bowl of cherry tomatoes, with tea cozy for size. Each bowlful is about 120 tomatoes, and we've pulled in at least five heaping bowlfuls since I returned home from America. They've all been delicious.

 But I am starting to think that maybe I planted too many. I actually have fewer plants this year, but they're more productive than last year, somehow. Not complaining!

 This year's mutant. Not sure if it should be eaten.

 Still on the vine.  Taken this afternoon. They're really lovely.  I've noticed that they generally don't go fully red until after you've picked them.  They become a lovely deep orange colour on the vine, but if you let them go solidly red outside they almost always split and become food for critters. I pick them a day or so before they're deep red and let them finish ripening in the bowl.  They're still sweet, juicy, and delicious.

 A larger variety, just now beginning to turn. These are Marmandes and grow well in France.  They grow pathetically in London. We're expecting to hit our main cold snap in a few days here and these are nowhere near ready. Better never than late, maybe? I don't think they'll ripen before the cold kills the plants. Fail. Also failed this year: bell peppers, dill, coriander. Also pretty much failed this year: lavatera (one plant bloomed), Nigella Moody Blues (one plant volunteered under a table) salad greens (planted as a peace offering to the snails; they ate the salad and everything else as well).  Thrived this year: Gardener's Delights (cherry tomatoes, grow like weeds), courgettes (made several meals out of them), lemon balm (still haven't done anything with it),  flowering tobacco (still blooming at the far end of the garden) and actually we got about five tasty apples off our tree. Others were eaten by bugs and squirrels. The rosemary, mint, thyme, and sage are doing okay, the primrose is hobbling along. Now that the cypress is gone we have more room in the sunshine for tulips, pinks and daffodils in the spring.

This is my tomato hedge. It is actually just six plants--four Gardener's Delights, two Marmandes. The forsythia in the centre appears to have made friends with its nearest tomato, as it is absolutely filled with them. I built them a trellis this year, supported by the latticework, the beech trees, and the forsythia, but the plants on the far side still decided to grow straight up through the trees and to the sky--a climb of about 12 feet. The miniature rose in the pot was an engagement gift from Boy's aunt that I just put in a larger pot.