Tomato Transplant!

Stick your head outside one of the windows at my flat and you'll inevitably be treated to a constant cacophony of screeching planes on their final approach to Heathrow airport. Invasive aviation aside, popping your head outside of the window is also likely to result in a brush with all manner of plants and pots, which I have been growing from seed over the past few weeks.

Along with courgette and cucumber plants, I have been growing two different varieties of tomatoes, 'Pomodoro' Italian beefsteak and 'Lycopersicon Esculentum Tigrella' (the latter are illustrated in the photo at the top of this post), to accompany the shop-bought tomato plants up at the allotment. Many of London's converted Victorian flats have huge windowsills, which is an excellent space to utilise for growing seeds – especially in this hot weather.

Anyway, I hiked the 2 miles up to the allotment this morning intending to get my home-grown baby tomato plants bedded in. I usually run to the allotment, but was laden down with bags of tomato, cucumber and courgette plants, so a slower pace was required!

I separated the plants and proceeded to bed these into the soil, which I had previously broken up with a fork. Now, these plants look very droopy, as they had only just gone in and not been watered when the photo was taken, but hopefully they will bed in fine.

For experimentation, I have also set up a couple of tomato plants in a grow bag:

I'm keen to see which set of plants grows more productively, as the soil in the allotment is rather clay-like and I had such success with grow bags on the balcony last year. I'm not sure if it will make a huge difference, but it makes for interesting experimentation nonetheless. Tomatoes also seem to be one of the few plants that the birds are leaving alone at the moment, so I'm investing a lot of faith in these plants – and the harvest that they'll hopefully bring!