I have just won an Oscar!

Well can you believe it, a few days afer my MOM award. Mrs TK, aka  Galloping Gourmet won this award just to steal my thunder. Well done GG, but I cannot believe that we have eaten all that food you have cooked in  just one year! Just click the picture to see the post.

 

OK not quite an Oscar but just as prestigious. It is   Grow Your Own Forums   

Not a bad little honour for just giving a little advice about tomato growing over the past season. I even get sent a goody bag from GYO magazine. I just hope someone have given them my address in France!

I do know that some of the members of the GYO forum  read some of the posts on my blog, and I follow some of theirs, which you can see in the list of sites that I follow. But for all of you out there that have never visited the GYO forum, I thoroughly recommend that you take a look. The knowledge of many of the members on all aspects of growing is vast, and there is always someone ready with good advice.

So the latest news from the polytunnel, is that I am going to retire my triple stemed cucumber plant that was I was trying to get 50 cucumbers from. I am afraid to say that she only managed 46! But hey that's not bad and Mrs TK has run out of things to do with cucumbers, but here  are a few ideas on her BLOG  

The weather has turned very wet as you can see by the chickens !

As for the tomatoes, which is what this blog is really about,  normally at this time of the year I would have stopped the heads of all of my plants to get the harvest off by winter. However, this year I am leaving them grow until the frost starts, which could be December.

Luckily, my one spray of Bordeaux mix has still kept the dreaded blight away from the indoor tomatoes, although my outdoor ones are all finished.  I have not seen one white fly, leaf minor or Caterpillar in my polytunnel this year. I have never not seen white fly on a tomato crop, so maybe the French marigolds that I grew in the polytunnel  have really done their job well this year.

The plants are still fairly healthy, and I still keep one door open at night if it is raining, as that keeps the humidity down a little, and I will only close both doors on cold dry nights. This could help stop Mildew or Blight which is quite prevalent in damp conditions.

The plants are slowly continuing to grow over the paths and as you can see there is still plenty fruit to harvest.

I do like to grow tomatoes on my plants, not just shoots and leaves! Which to me is what it is all about, getting the best crop from a confined space. It is not all about packing as many plants in as you can, or they will be fighting for the light, and you are more prone to diseases.

Keep them well watered, feed, de-shooted and nature will do the rest. 

These are my latest pictures .

And this is what's left of the triple stemmed cucumber !