National Vegetable Society Meeting and Harvesting Tomatoes

Hectic Times

National Vegetable Society Meeting

I didn’t get down to the plot on Tuesday as we had our NVS meeting in the evening and so no opportunity to catch up with work in the evening if I skive off in the day.

It was a really interesting talk by John Smiles about rhubarb growing. I must admit to having to stifle a laugh when he talked about ‘The Rhubarb Triangle’. Visions of heavily armed Yorkshiremen with mules loaded with rhubarb trekking through the jungle avoiding government troops. Must have been the beer.

New NVS Web Site

Wednesday, I didn’t get down either. I went up to Dave Hampsey of the NVS to run over various bits of the web site. He lives in Stockport, which isn’t too far but I got lost at the end and spent half an hour touring Manchester. We got quite a lot done in the afternoon and he showed me his greenhouses and deep beds in the garden. Deep beds to waist height for carrots and the greenhouse sits on waist high beds as well. It’s a super model with roller blinds for shading, heating, growlights etc.

Val’s inability to drive with her leg in plaster meant I had to call in the supermarket on the way home, She must have trained me well because I returned with organic loaves reduced to 19p and organic beef burgers reduced from 2.99 to 50p.

Back home to sort various glitches on the NVS web site and then a kind email pointing out some glitches on this site. By 11pm I was wondering about a career change!

Warm, Sunny and Windy

Today was pretty busy but it was summer hot and windy. A hot wind at that, so by 5pm I’d had enough and headed to the plot to check the greenhouses hadn’t blown away.

I needn’t have worried as they were fine but my coldframe on plot 5 had gone for a walk. Put it back and added a few bricks to hold it down. I’m a bit concerned as they’re predicting some high winds and I’ve still not got the door on the big greenhouse. That’s always a risk as the wind can get in and cause damage, Fingers crossed.

Harvesting Tomatoes

Harvested some tomatoes from plot 29. The plum Roma’s have been productive and these are free of botrytis but it seems there are three types of tomatoes:

• Green tomatoes


• Green Tomatoes that have been nibbled by something


• Ripe tomatoes that have been nibbled by something

There seemed to be a lot of woodlice – perhaps they are responsible for the damages.

I cleared off some branches, most of the foliage and any very small green tomatoes to the compost. A carrier bag of green and some ripe but ropy tomatoes for home and quite a few left to, hopefully, ripen before the frosts come.

Did a bit of weeding until 7pm when I sat on my bench, watched the sun go down and listened to my favourite soap opera on the radio.