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