Happily Ever After

Never mind the outfit, here's the tomatoes that went to the wedding; Belgian Slice sneaking into the photo in the background, top left, was for the nuptial afternoon tea.
The show-off in the middle is a fused beefsteak, one of those fruits which is clearly three squidged together. The problem with them is that the three fruits still ripen individually and sometimes one part of the tomato will be green while the rest is nicely ripening. Other problems: well if a bird pecks it out and it goes rotten you lose a lot more tomato at one time. These also don't separate easily from the plant and require secaturs on hand to pick them.

The green shouldered tomatoes behind are Black Krim. Pink Brandy wine to the right with the deeper wrinkles and little blackjack over on the left. They are all delicious with Black Krim and Blackjack top of the flavour stakes at the moment.
Now somehow a few rogue sunflowers got away in the glasshouse and I haven't had the heart to pull them out. The heads are threating to push through the glass and that may be the nudge that leads to their execution. Actually they are still headless as are all their siblings in the garden; that is only a growing tip. It is own-seed so there's a genetic mystery to solve sometime if they don't flower.

The birds seem to have bred twice this year and were feeding young again in the New Year. Sure are plenty around and they too have a penchant for fresh tomatoes. Children were given permission to aim the beeby guns at them but the responsibility of broken glass countered their enthusiasm and the best thing so far has been these dangling foil strips. ('Bull in a china shop', guns in a glasshouse? no shots were fired).

Photo below doesn't capture the beautiful veiny yellow of the leaves. The yellow features on the new growth, the edges of the leaves are a darker green, we're looking at a micronutrient deficiency, and can you guess?
The real give-away is that I limed the soil twice so factor in a high ph soil. Other possible contributing factors are water stress (this is presenting in the tomatoes around the sunflowers which are sucking up moisture like gum trees in a bog.) One more thing, we had a fairly cool week and colder temperatures can also inhibit nutrient take-up.

 

Iron Deficiency. I know that now.  I'm thinking there is probably enough iron in the soil and that it is just an access problem exacerbated by too much lime. Answer: do nothing.

I tried to find a suitable wedding poem to dedicate to George and Kerry and...came up with On Not Getting Married by Richard Langston. I think it could also be called  Getting Married A Second Time (with apologies to Richard)

Getting Married A Second Time

Instead of a bride
she imagines the whiteness of a flower.

Instead of a groom
he imagines how to be the best man.

Instead of household appliances
they make the gift of each other.

Instead of an organist
they make their own music.

Instead of a church
they have a room to dress and undress.

Instead of sprays of cut flowers
they leave them in their gardens.

Instead of one supper at long tables
they will feast many times on this light.