The greenhouse currently houses lots of tomato plants. There are Buffalo, Black Crimean, Sulpice & Irish Gardener’s Delight which are nearly big enough to plant out when the weather is right. Last night we had the mother of all storms with torrential rain and immense gusts of wind. Anyway, back to the tomatoes. The Irish Gardener’s Delight needed pinching out. This involves nipping out small shoots that appear in the little armpit between the main stem and a side shoot. If you don’t pinch it out the plant becomes vast and unwieldy and your tomatoes, though prolific, will be much smaller. Leaving the shoots to become enormous also reduces the amount of air circulating around the plant and increases humidity which, in turn, increases mildew.

Here’s the same plant after the tiny shoots have been pinched out.

This morning, in the greenhouse, I also sowed some yellow cherry tomatoes, red balcony bush tomatoes, some Kelvedon Wonder peas, Romanesco courgettes, Vigneronne runner beans and Du Couvent runner beans.

I had help, of course.