Growing by Season

[MaryN]

It’s that time of year again. I’ve dusted off the propagators and checked my stocks of compost. Just got to wait a bit now for the weather to warm up (fingers drumming) a bit so that I can venture to plant the first seeds of the season.

This year I am experimenting with a few different strains of tomatoes. I love tomatoes – so versatile and so good for you. I do believe in eating by the seasons. Seeds are tiny little computers, programmed to germinate at the right time of year and in the right conditions. After all their chief aim in life is to reproduce and conditions have to be right. This is why I cannot abide those chilly red orbs that pass for tomatoes in supermarkets. They are grown in hydroponic conditions, out of season and force-fed with nutrients like vegetable geese. No flavour to speak off and I rather doubt their health giving properties. Tomatoes should be grown in the summer when the sun ripens them naturally and they slowly grow to rich lusciousness on the vine. Who hasn’t wandered past a tomato plant when a tomato popped into your hand and you just happened to have a salt cellar in your pocket? Those chilly supermarket things probably miss out on all the encouragement from a doting grower – “You’re blushing prettily today, fancy popping into a salad?” – and who wants to eat something that feels as if it grew up in a fridge. No, I would rather wait for my little pets to grow and ripen in their own time.

This year I am trying out a streaky variety and also my personal favourite, a tomato called Red Brandywine, unsurpassed in my opinion for flavour.

Happy growing.