Tomato heaven

Written by: adekun on 28 July, 2010 10:48 am - Filed under: garden — 1 Comment »

This year by far, has been the best for tomatoes. They were looking good before, since then, quite perfect. Only about six feet away, the father-in-law’s specially fed vines have started to shrivel. One in the corner began to yellow, soon after the rest like dominoes. Hopefully, there is enough space between each other’s and not too much flying back and forth.

The plan has always been to grow a variety of tomatoes, with the expectation that some will be a bit hit and miss. I think the yellow cherry tomatoes boast the best flavour with the yellow aiko down at the other end. Continue reading

Tags: garden, tomatoes

Kabocha peekaboo

Written by: adekun on 7 July, 2010 12:24 pm - Filed under: garden — 6 Comments »

Amongst the sea of grasses a couple of kabocha have plumped up nicely. They look to be somewhere in the expected 500 g to 800 g range. Not sure when will be the best time to harvest them. The skin should be darker anyway.
Tomatoes are good. Following a deluge the larger ones tend to burst before the crowns have had chance to turn red. However, this year, the fruit have ripened fully and been picked before any such calamity. Not so many made the kitchen.

Tags: garden, kabocha, tomatoes, weather

Wednesday’s weeding

Written by: adekun on 16 June, 2010 5:52 pm - Filed under: garden — 2 Comments »

The rainy season reached Kagoshima on Friday. Rain reached here yesterday. Strangely, today is hot and cloudless. With work starting late in the day, there wasn’t reason to skimp the blossoming garden chores. June is especially punishing if the weeds are untamed. Firstly, the month grants ideal conditions for them to run rampant. Second, it is generally an unpleasant time to exert oneself outside; hot and humid with purposeful mosquitoes on the prowl. Continue reading

Tags: garden, herbs, sweet corn, tomatoes, weather, weeds

Corrosive chutney

Written by: adekun on 19 May, 2010 10:11 am - Filed under: blog — No Comments »

The extra mature green tomato chutney I was saving has eaten through its lid. Instead of sitting alongside some cheddar it is now sitting amongst the compost. Next time I should have to go belt and braces with a layer of cellophane or wax disc between it and the lid. Maybe a plastic lid would be better than plastic coated?

Tags: tomatoes

Summer veg in

Written by: adekun on 7 May, 2010 8:54 am - Filed under: garden — 9 Comments »

After an extra trip or two to buy a few more plants the summer veg planting is done. Even after a good look around, there doesn’t seem much to bridge the gap between mini and large tomatoes.
This year a few of the small アイコ (aiko) and 少桃 (lit. little peach) were planted, at the large end, the usual 桃太 (momotaro). I did come upon some grafted tomatoes with fruit around 60 g a piece. I hope they turn out to be a good investment… Continue reading

Tags: garden, potatoes, sweet corn, tomatoes

Plants for transplanting

Written by: adekun on 1 May, 2010 4:30 pm - Filed under: garden — No Comments »

Buying plants from a nursery or home centre is getting expensive. Each year they seem to increase in price several hundred times the rate of inflation.
Still, the price of a regular tomato plant is less than a handful of tomatoes from the supermarket. No doubt the fickle weather and the glut of retiring baby boomers play part in these yearly increases.

Tags: garden, tomatoes

Welcome to the Jungle

Written by: adekun on 7 July, 2009 6:54 pm - Filed under: garden — No Comments »

Upon our return, the view of the garden did bewilder. It was great to see how much things had come on in the short time we were away. Kabocha had climbed up the sweet corn and over the tomatoes, many of which were ripe. It’s warmer than it was in England and horribly humid. The coming weeks weeding is unlikely to be pleasant.

Tags: garden, kabocha, sweet corn, tomatoes, weeds