The Belleville Summer fair was blessed with fine weather today and a big crowd turned up to enjoy the many attractions on offer. The plant stall was really well supported and we sold most of the tomatoes, peppers and courgettes, some of the Italian pumpkins and aubergines and a fair few marigolds, busy lizzies, violas, begonias and geraniums. Half of the of the flowers were donated by Homebase - we just had to pot them up, so many thanks to them.
Many thanks to Peter Holland who proved an excellent, and almost knowledgeable, salesman.
If you have any photos of the fete please email them to jd@motionrecords.com

Carnival - and excercise amongst the tomatoes...

Belleville School carnival brightened up the streets of Battersea this afternoon as it paraded up Northcote Rd. The vegetable growing department managed to sell twenty four bags of swiss chard, little gem lettuce, spinach and salad to a captive audience of parents during the fine festival of dance and music that was put on afterwards in the school playground.
(Right: Italian Ridged Pumpkin - just starting to grow)
(Below: Marmande. Below that: Courgette - a few days from being ready to eat)
The mass harvesting of salads resulted in a major thinning out, leaving the year three and four beds looking a little bare; but they'll regrow soon enough, with a bit of luck.
There was also a major pruning of tomato plants (cordon varieties often having forked into two main stems when I wasn't looking, you know the sort of thing!) which has allowed more light to get to the tomatoes, and also revealed a couple of ladbirds trying to play leapfrog amongst the leaves, I think ( click on the image above right).


Above from left to right: Carrots with parsnips in the background, the flower of a french climbing bean, and and onion.

The vegetable growers union would like to congratulate headmaster John Grove, the teachers and the assistants, all of whom put in so much work to make the carnival such a success!

And the winners are....

The first tomatoes have appeared already and, for those interested in this sort of thing, the varieties that have fruited well ahead of their rivals are 'Marmande' followed by Tornado F1. 'Marmande' is an heirloom beefsteak variety which produces large, ribbed tomatoes of a very deep red colour.
They taste great and have few seeds.'Tornado F1' were specially bred for British summer conditions. They are very early and produce a compact bushy plant that carries a heavy crop of round fruits showing up well through sparse foliage. An RHS 'Award of Garden Merit' winner.
(Above: Marmande)
(Below: Tornado F1)
You won't see either of these varieties in the supermarkets because they are thin skinned and don't travel well (i.e. sit in lorries and storerooms for weeks being exposed to ripening gasses). These are very sweet flavoured and perfectly illustrate the advantages of growing your own!
The others varieties have plenty of flowers but no tomatoes as yet.


The strawberries are also doing well. We need some straw though, as this photo reminded me.

It's all gone bananas

Wow, the recent rain and sprinkling of sunshine has resulted in massive growth of many of the crops, the salads in particular. Unfortunately this co-incided with half term, so haven't been able to sell produce to the parents. Hopefully will arrange this for Tuesday......also have loads of cougette and pumpkin plants - and the tomatoes are massive, with flowers - all ready for some serious tomato action in other words! A couple of videos follow:








Tried the swiss chard yesterday and it was delicious. Treat it like spinach - my mother-in-law, who knows about these things, steamed it with a little nutmeg. Start with the stems and add the leaves for the last couple of minutes. Yum.