For years I have grown a good crop of tomatoes but the problem I have had is that they seem to all come at once and I end up giving loads away or making soup and freezing it.
I did try planting the seeds at different times but the tail-enders seemed to catch up with the earlier starters. So this year I am going to try three different varieties.
Firstly I will stick with a 'cherry' tomato....Gardener's Delight; and then I decided to have a go at a low growing 'bush' version which doesn't need the side shoots pinching out. To complete the trio I planted some Italian 'plum' tomatoes which can be used for cooking.
Well.......we shall see.
I read that twenty years ago the Prince of Wales said that it was “very important” to talk to plants and that “they respond”.
Well now the Royal Horticultural Society is trying to determine if he was right.
It is conducting a study into how – if at all – the human voice affects tomato plants.
Each tomato plant will “listen” to a different recording through the headphones of an MP3 player attached to its pot at root level. The plants will be kept in the same greenhouse and measured before, during and after the experiment. Control plants will be left in peace.
Colin Crosbie, a gardens superintendent at Wisley who came up with the idea for the research project, is already convinced that plants respond favourably to human voices. “I’m a great believer. I definitely talk to plants,” he said. “Most gardeners are quite tactile and we do talk to them. Sometimes we talk kindly and sometimes we threaten them.
“Sometimes it’s gentle encouragement, but there are times with a plant when you say, ‘If you don’t do something this is the end. You are not producing flowers, I’m very sorry, it’s going to be the compost heap.’ It’s amazing how they respond,” he said. “People say I’m slightly mad, but I do believe in it, I really do.”
So now I have my tomatoes listening to radio 4!!
.......or do you think they might prefer a little classical music from radio 3?
In the summer, everything I make starts with tomatoes, onions and bell peppers. Depending on the spices, it can go Italian or Mexican. Last year I had fresh tomatoes through October 15. How did people survive before tomatoes?
ReplyDeleteMy tomatoes hear ABBA and my neighbor's mariachi music.
Hi Jan, thanks for dropping in.
ReplyDeleteExactly right, how did they manage? And of course...onions as well usually form the base with tomatoes for all sorts of dishes.
You don't play ABBA do you?
I was only joking about the music!
Cheers......Bernard
How about a round of "Yes, we have no bananas"?
ReplyDeleteI don't think the MP3 will do it,I reckon they need real people who care.