Ghost Chili etc

The past couple of weeks have definitely revolved around the Ghost Chili and therefore it is fitting that I am able to write an update starting off with this excellent plant.

My friend (he after whom the Crossley Special Chili is named, and who gave me the seeds for my attempt at growing some) invited me for dinner last week to have an excellent pasta dish cooked with the Ghost Chilis. It was epic and really highlighted why these are Chili plants which you should grow; undoubtedly they are very hot but this heat has an amazing flavour and, while you are crying, you are also making appreciative sounds because of their flavour. He was also nice enough to gift me a couple of whole chilis from his glut and we had half of one of these in an excellent tuna and rice dish with the same results; sweat and pleasure from the taste.

So my advice is; grow some yourself but if you are, remember to keep them in larger pots than you would have thought as they get dwarfed very easily if you don't pot them up early and often.

So, onto my update:

 The Ghost Chili plant has LOADS of flowers on it, and more coming all the time. I have just started manually moving the pollen around with an ear-bud and this does seem to be encouraging something more than just flowers...

... as you can see here. The red Chili appeared independently, but the (very blurry) green one at the front (and another couple) have all started since I went round with my promiscuous cotton bud.

Finally some delight from my Gardeners Delight Tomato, this is the only fruit I have achieved and it is slowly but surely ripening.

On the front room windowsill the Moneymaker Tomatoes are like a forest, and have a lot of fruit and still some flowers.

These ones are ripening nicely and will probably be put into a dish very soon.

Finally the aforementioned Crossley Special Chilis are still hanging onto their leaves (though they are dropping quite a lot now) but a couple of the plants have just got a new lease of life and put out LOADS more flowers. This is very strange as it is very late in the season. I reckon I will just keep watching these and looking after them and maybe I will get a late harvest.

So, that's that. No more pictures for today.

Keep growing.

Eating a Tomato

After such a long time away from updating this blog, it is good that I have another thing to write about.

Actually, I reckon I could get a bit better at adding to this blog for another couple of weeks yet, before winter finally sets in.

As I was taking the pictures for the update post yesterday I noticed that a couple of the Tomatoes were starting to feel a little soft; getting overly ripe.

So, this evening, as part of my meal I decided to pick those fruits and incorporate them into my meal.

The three ripest Tomatoes just picked. You can see the middle one was very over-ripe and tore slightly as I was detaching it from the vine. The other two were only just starting to go that way so detached much easier.

I decided to fry the softest of them, as you can see here next to my very nice looking Pork Chop. The other two I baked with the chips but I didn't take a picture of that.

And here you have it. The Tomatoes were so tasty; super sweet and added some much-needed moisture to the Pork Chop which was a little lean for my tastes; I prefer a chunky bit of fat around the edges to add flavour and juices.

So there you are, it's the best thing in the world to think "I want Tomatoes with my dinner" and to be able to go and just grab them.

I've one other thing to add; since the photograph yesterday (and my comment that I thought it didn't get enough sun to flower properly) the smaller Geranium has flowered!

One lovely bloom on the smaller Geranium.

Lovely.

Anyway, that's all for now.

A much delayed update

Hi there, it has been ages since I posted an update on here.

I have a very good excuse though; I spent the last two weeks house sitting for a good friend, watering his wife's Tomatoes, and generally taking a weight off.

But I am back and I have a post with some pictures of progress which is happening in the few things I have managed to grow this year. I have been amazed at the progress other people who I've met through this blog and other means have managed to achieve. You know who you are and you are now an inspiration to me.

Anyway, on with the update...

Since re-potting the Ghost Chili has gone from strength to strength. As you can see here it is now quite large. I am worried that I am a lot late in the season though. A large number of flowers appear to be producing fruit but I'm not totally sure about that. I should have potted it up much earlier.

This is the one large-ish Chili on the Ghost Chili plant.

This is the Geranium which I was drowning in an earlier blog post; it has done much better since I have drastically reduced the amount of watering it was getting. I think it is not in a sunny enough position (and I have run out of sunny positions now unfortunately) to get the full bloom but it was an important lesson to learn.

My update goes outside for the first time for a long while and this is one of the Carrots which is growing; It is green; is this usual? Should I be moving this or covering it up or something?

The Parsnips have grown well in their little container, which is great; I did not think that either the Carrots nor Parsnips would be successful in containers.

The only sad thing about this picture is I will not be here to see it flower. I love Foxgloves and wish I'd tried to plant one earlier. Oh well, there's always my next location :)

Chives have, as previously, proven themselves to be really hardy and easy to grow. This, which was nearly dead, is now well established and I expect it to come back again after the winter.

I have come home to find that loads more Tomatoes have appeared on the Moneymakers in the front room. I hope the sun stays out long enough to ripen these off.

There are a fair number ripe now and nearly ready for picking and eating; I may have a salad this weekend.

Finally for this update, the Crossley Special Chilis which are fruitful as they were last year, and still flowering. I think I need to harvest these and try and dry them, though doing so in a house with no airing cupboard, and it becoming cold and unsettled outside, this does present a problem.

So there you are. I'd be very keen on advice about the Carrot which appears green?

And any hints and tips for drying which don't involve radiators, airing cupboards or hot dry days :D

Keep growing

Some flowers, some Tomatoes and a chill or two

It has been so long since I did a general update that I was going to do one anyway today however, as I was walking around looking for pictures to take I noticed that there was actually quite a selection of interest and excitement to tell you about.

So, as I have a good chunk of pictures for you this time, I'll crack straight on with it.

There are now two large blooms on the large Geranium on the front windowsill, which is a beautiful thing to behold.

The same plant has put up another couple of flower heads and these, from early signs, look to be yellow. I am looking forward to them both being in bloom together. I haven't got a photograph but the other Geranium, that which had fungus growing around its roots, has now started to put up a flower stalk so thank you for the advice from various people to stop watering it so much :)

One of the Crossley Special Chillis is turning orange. I don't know if this picture really captures quite how luminescent it is.

You may be able to see slightly better in this one, contrasting the top Chilli to the lower larger bright red one.

This is the cluster of Moneymaker Tomatoes from which I took the diseased one (that was caused by a lack of water during germination, apparently) And you can see that a small fruit is already growing to replace it. There are loads of little clusters of fruits on this plant now, only one red, but hopefully a harvest of sorts will be possible.

The Citrus tree is still healthy and has one fruit on it, however its main benefit is from the blossom which smells amazing as you come up the stairs. I love it!

One of the Begonia flowers has come out really nice and orange. Lovely.

Most of the Begonia flowers are yellow, however, and profuse as you can see from this picture

This is the one and only fruit on the Gardener's Delight Tomato. I hope I get more than this.

The plant itself is very tall and growing all the time - it goes right to the top of this picture.

Most excitingly of all for this update I have the first of my Ghost Chilli fruits! It looks like I'll be getting some more too.

Potting up was a very good idea as you can see from this, the plant is flourishing again and a lesson learned here is to give far more room to Chili plants than I have been; even when small they seem to limit their growth based on a smaller pot.

So, there you have it. I am quite distracted by the progress I am making towards emigration however I am not taking my eye of the ball and, other than the progress shown here, it looks like my carrots and parsnips are doing well. I will have to check the carrots out soon I think.

Keep growing people

Mint flowers, Mushrooms and Tomato update

Happy Sunday morning people.

Today I have another brief post; not much seems to be happening to update you on at the moment and I'm also totally focused on my plans for emigrating to do this full time.

I had some some very useful comments on a previous blog which is what prompted this blog. First of all, the flowers on the Mint, and then the diseased Tomato.

Mint flowers really are gorgeous... and they smell divine too. Click on the picture to enlarge it and see the details. I used scissors to cut these off as my secaturs are no where to be found. Hopefully now all the energy will go into essential oils and growing the rest of the plant, and not into making these beautiful blooms.

While I was by the Mint I noticed these little fellas which have appeared in the last day or two at the base of the Geranium. I'm leaving them for now, to see what happens. This Geranium has not flowered yet, I'm not sure if the mushrooms are indicative of a reason.

The other helpful advice was this link to a page about diseases, and specifically ones effecting Tomatoes. I am not 100% sure if this Tomato is suffering from Anthracnose or Sour Rot. Either way I had to remove it from the vine.

Here is a detail of the removed Tomato.

And here is another one. I may chose to keep this and see what happens now; obviously away from the other plants to avoid contamination.

It's not all bad news on the Tomato front though; there are quite a lot of clusters of fruit like this which have appeared towards the top of the plants. Hopefully I will get a good harvest from these yet.

So there you are, brief but sweet.

Thanks for reading.

And keep gardening

Eating a Tomato

Today is a quick update as something exciting happened yesterday.

The first picked Tomato of the year (not that there are many others to pick) but this one smelled GORGEOUS and is lovely and shiny and red.

The home grown Tomato sitting on a gorgeous cheese toastie. It was absolutely lovely and tasted great, if it was a little sloppy.

So there you are, that was very exciting indeed.

For the progress report I have a couple of cool things to show you.

A load of Crossley Special Chillis. We have already started eating these and they are really nice; hot but tasty. Everything home grown always tastes better.

The Geranium flower pictured a week or so ago has now flowered fully, and another shoot has appeared next to it ready to flower in its own right.

So there you are, that is my update for today.

Keep growing.

Fruiting Progress

Well it's been longer than planned (as it normally is) since the last blog post but I am back for a short, but very sweet, update.

I will go straight to the pictures:

The Crossley Special Chillis, which have been fruiting spectacularly, have now started to ripen with many of them turning red. This one is a particularly interesting shape so I figured I'd take a picture.

The Moneymaker Tomatoes have started to develop some more fruit, these are tiny and towards the top of the plant.

The fruit which has been showing on the plant for longest is now starting to ripen too.

The larger of the two Geraniums has put up a stalk and I suddenly noticed, the other day, a flower has appeared at its tip. I am watching this now with interest.

The plant which is fairing best on the back windowsill is, unsurprisingly, the Mint. Mint plants like slightly shaded areas, and are also quite thirsty and what I am doing for this is obviously correct as it has flourished.

Last but not least the couple of herbs still on the kitchen window sill are surviving both the non-ideal location, and depredations caused by us eating them.

Anyway, that is the update for today; short but sweet I think you have to agree.

It is too hot for me to spend more time looking at a laptop in the evening.

Night

Repotting Tomatoes (again)

For the last few weeks I have been looking at the larger Self Watering Planters which I made out of the large water bottles and have been dissatisfied with how they were performing. Not only was the volume available for the roots not quite as large as I wanted, but the reservoir kept drying out in a single day.

I think that the seal between the top and bottom was not great which caused evaporation to occur.

The other irritation was the cane I was using to provide support kept falling over and finally, actually watering into the reservoir was being difficult so I was having to waterlog the soil and hope it dripped through.

So, all in all, these were not working out for me and today, with the nice weather, I finally decided I'd had enough so I change the pots.

So, without any further ado, here is the blog...

This is the larger of the two Tomato plants laid down outside waiting to be shucked out of the self watering planter. If you look closely you can see just how tight the roots are already inside the plastic.

The two plant pots which I will be moving the Moneymaker Tomato plants into.

With much effort I managed to remove the root ball from the planter; it really did not have any more room to grow.

To solve the problem which using only one cane was causing I am going to create a tripod of three canes. Here I have loosely pushed them into the compost prior to adding the plant.

Here is the root ball settled in to a hollow in the compost, with the canes around it.

The whole Tomato plant sits nicely between the canes, and is held to them using the plastic catches which have proven so useful over the past year.

As explained earlier I am going to draw the canes together into a tripod so they work together to keep the plant upright; I have used an elastic band to hold them at the top.

There are some flowers on this Tomato plant, and I kinda liked this shot so I have added it; It shows again the tripod drawn together and one of the plastic catches that I am praising so much.

Some of the leaves towards the bottom of this Tomato plant have turned purple! I have never seen this before, anyone have any ideas?

Both of the Moneymaker Tomato plants have been repotted and are here sat back on the front windowsill. I hope this is the last time I have to move them.

Next a short update on the Potatoes as blogged about yesterday :)

Here are the three Potato planters, now propped up with various items and hopefully not to be blown over again. The middle one looks a little dead but I checked and it looks like it'll be OK. Fingers firmly crossed.

Some flowers are starting to show on my Potatoes. Is this a bad thing?

And finally....

I have decided to bring the larger of the two Geranium plants onto the front window where it will get more sunlight Let us see what happens.

So there you are, a quick update, but it has felt good to get things done today, in the sun.

Cheers