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My tomato plant

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This strange summer is my first attempt at growing tomatoes from a packet of seeds. The plants are trying, but not in a very uniform way.

The one in the photograph above began as a seed, indoors, in late May. Then, together with all siblings from the same packet, was placed into covered sunshine for about ten days, and then transferred with the others out into pots along a wall in full sun. Since then each plant has had the same amount of love and neglect, and been exposed to the same bouts of weird weather.

Their first week out was one of brisk winds and cold nights which turned them all pale and wibbly, and their leaves yellow, but slowly the wind died, and the sunshine switched from feeble, to full beam brilliance. That weather lasted for a few weeks, so hot that on some days the plants were actually put into the shade for protection, before being moved back into the full sun. Then we come to this week, where temperatures have dropped again, and rain is either drowning the plants, or drifting over them in teasing waves.

The question is, how will this crop do? The strange thing is how different each plant’s progress is, compared to its neighbour. Right now it seems that some of them might do okay, and others of them probably won’t, and I’m not sure any will produce tomatoes. The one in the photograph above is the runt of the litter, embarrassed by a few of its bolder siblings who are now twice as tall, and already flowering.

So will 2023 be a good vintage? I have no idea. Just getting a tomato will be amazing … if it happens.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023

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Hot enough in London today

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The sun was shining, the breeze was cool, and the rain dabbed here and there, but nothing too serious – the perfect day to stroll along the South Bank and then over Millennium Bridge to St Paul’s.

We looked in on the beautiful craft shops on the first floor of the Oxo Tower, and then wandered on past Tate Modern, and the schools out for end of term trips, their uniforms and chat filling the grass beneath the trees. Buskers took up the edges before the airy bridge over the river.

The Morph, dressed ‘in London’ above, was outside the Tourist Information Centre, one of a whole tribe, each dressed differently, who we came across dotted around the City. Their pedestals, and each has one, includes information on Whizz Kids, a charity for young wheelchair users. I’ve just looked them up and I see the Morph tribe are all part of Morph’s Epic Art Adventure.

After lunch near St Paul’s, loving the indoor cool, we only had time for a quick walk around the Smithfield area, looking in on the church of St Bartholomew the Great, then over the Barbican, past the Ironmongers’ Hall, and on, too fast, and too hot, to catch a train from Waterloo.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023

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They told us so …

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… but did we listen?

No.

I’ve found it impossible not to notice the weather this year. Here in the south of England it’s warm – humid and still, with a wind that shakes through now and then, without bringing much rain. So far.

‘Typical Wimbledon weather’ they say cheerily on the news, but it doesn’t feel like it, and I’m sure it’s not. This is not the usual English summer of occasional sunshine peeping through sheets of drizzle. Rather this feels like Meditteranean meets the tropics. And it’s been heading that way for a few years – drier and drier.

Meanwhile all around there is news of far, far worse. Horrific storms. Landslides. Unbearable heat. Wildfires. Forbes reported on July 5th, that July 4th was “… the hottest day on Earth in as many as 125,000 years …” and the days to either side of it equally record breaking. So what do we do?

Cutting back on almost everything seems the way forward for ‘developed’ nations, and demanding support from those nations the only option for those hit by the consequences of over-indulgence and lack of due regard for consequences.

Oh … and may we pray that El Niño will be kind to us.

Dolly Parton puts it well. Hope you have time to watch this video.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023