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I went out to look at my March sowings this evening and I can scarcely believe it, but I have ripening Super Marmandes and also another very big beefsteak variety of dubious origin.
I was expecting it to start at the beginning of August!!
The Shirleys, Alicantes and Ailsa Craigs are as you would expect – lots set, some quite large but all green.
What a nice surprise Rhys, good growing and the warm spring and it helps that London is warm, by night especially. I have a few outdoor Sungold ripening but that is an early variety and against a south wall. In the polytunnel there are some ripe fruit, not a lot yet, no Marmande.
It is a nice surprise – I can use them for the Royal Welsh show maybe, which is in 2 weeks time??
The first truss of Ferline is showing signs of faint orange, as is the sole Black Russian which set before the solstice (that plant suddenly set another 40 after the Solstice, so from being a potential discard it could become a regular).
Whatever you can or can’t say about biodynamic sowing/growing, the plants certainly got to maturity very quickly this year and were ready to fruit and grow as the days got long. I’ll certainly keep trying it until we have a poor growing season and see if it helps under sub-optimal growing conditions.
I ate my first outdoor tumbling tom about four weeks ago, but since then nothing, just lots of small green ones expanding. I harvested a truss or so from each outdoor sungold about four weeks ago, and a few ripe ones today, more ripening. The first four trusses were fast to appear, the next lot are quite slow, but lots of flowers now. I think the plants were putting energy into roots after planting in beds, which slowed flower formation.
A bit off topic, but I tend to let sungold sprawl a bit, to get a better harvest. The recommended eight trusses is far too few. I got about 16 ripe ones last year, plus about the same number of green ones which were hit by blight.
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