The most expensive seeds I ever planted...

Now, I love my tomatoes. I covet exotic sorts in the shops and moan that so many are flown in from Europe. Tomaotes go with every meal imaginable and as a snack straight from the vine. Growing odd varieties myself is the perfect solution. While I was pregnant last year I had a strange aversion to them - and many of the ones I grew went to waste as James doesn't like them at all. This year will be different...

Normally the seeds I buy come in at around £3 a pack for anywhere between 50-500 seeds. But the 100's and 1000's tomato seeds only have 8 in the pack - which made me treat them with a certain reverence. Reports suggest that you can crop over 2000 tomatoes from a single plant! They are tiny tomatoes, but numerous! By the way, I don't think I'll track their harvest fruit by fruit - but I might count how many bowlfulls we get.

I sowed and grew 2 plants. Today will be their first full day outdoors (I think it'll be a scorcher!). Last night I put them each in a hanging basket with plenty of homemade compost and some shop stuff. I'm not really very good at hanging baskets as they tend to dry out quickly and I get bored of watering them. So I lined the baskets with plastic to keep any mosture in. Once tomatoes are in fruit they don't appreciate getting dry. Trimming off the excess plastic liner was remeniscent of trimming pastry to make a flan case. Which makes me wonder what tasty food they will end up in.

A quick photo of strawberries, spinach and lettuce (haven't they done well!) and my cordon tomatoes (black cherry).

Seedlings moving into the garden remind me that summer is pretty much here. And blossom on autumn fruiting plants is just coming out. This blackberry is a crazy F1 that produces huge fruit. And it is the first in the row of fruit canes/bushes to even think about flowering. Isn't it pretty?

Tomorrow it is forecast for lots of thundery rain. Bring it on! Our water butt is almost empty. Bad weather tommorrow means that we should be out there right now making the most of today!