Sun Warmed Tomatoes

Could the last few weeks have been any more miserable? The parched, cracked soil that I stood over, sucking my teeth and scuffing with irritation at the beginning of March has turned into a quagmire as we head towards the middle of May. Unable to get onto my lovely light alluvial soil at all without wreaking untold damage I have retreated to the warm and dry of my new Polytunnel and on the colder days even huddled next to the greenhouse heater standing on a wooden board to take the chill out of the concrete slabs.

So today, desperate to get on with something on what must go down as one of the worst May days ever I decided that the moment had come to plant out  the tomatoes.

The tomatoes, sown in the house in February have been cosetted in their bubble wrapped and heated greenhouse, they have been grown in New Horizon compost and are in great shape. Maybe every now and again they are a little leggy but they have been grown very close together due to the lack of space so have reached on up from the middle of their trays. But they are still a good dark green and apart from the notoriously floppy Pink Brandywine, stand without staking for the moment.

Assisted ably by my two wwoofers (Willing Workers on Organic Farms) we carried all the tray into the tunnel and while Kemp began the job of tying in the plants that went in last week I sorted through the 200 or so plants, selecting the best, deciding how many of each to plant. Attempting to strike a balance between the need for quantity to fill the boxes and my passion for the unusual and the delicious.

If I had my way I would fill the tunnel with oddities, big gnarled, black or orange; tomatoes, as big as a melon, the shape of an Ox heart... However I'm supposed to be running a business and so Alissa Craig and Gardeners delight are also among the varieties that went in today. Next to a good number of my all-time favourite, Sungold.

I may have made a few mistakes, the odd plant has  had to be planted into or next to salad crops that are still not ready to harvest. Next year I will remember not to plant any baby leaf in the tunnel after the second week of April. We will see! in the meantime I pray for a frostless May, or at least nothing lower than -1 C I might struggle to cover it all with fleece now that the canes are in.

So now I have to make a decision about the 40 or so remaining plants. I will sell some at the school fete next week but I'm loathe to pot them on as compost is so expensive.  I think I will feed them from the bottom and place them further apart in the greenhouse to stop them stretching up too tall and leave then in their 3" pots. The remaining San Marzano and Sungold (you can never have too many) I will pot on and plant out in a couple of weeks as the salad crops are cleared.