Old Blighty

Finally after months of nurturing, watering, stringing up and much adjusting of the automatic greenhouse louvres; we are starting to get crops.

 Beautiful, earthy rainbow chard.

A delight and a joy to look at and eat.  A fairly new delight for Jean-Luc who still can't quite believe the full flavour of home grown veggies and leaps upon each new item with the cry of 'oh now can I use this tonight?'  or 'have you photographed it?'. 

I wonder why he thinks we're growing it if not to use but am thrilled at his enthusiasm for these humble yet tasty vegetables.

Our first cucumber of elegant proportions. 

This was combined with yoghurt and mint to become a cool and soothing raita which accompanied leftover lamb curry and chickpea and pepper curry.

Courgette (slightly overmatured) - another willing victim for my courgette and feta loaf, mwah ha ha.

and now we come to the sad, sad reason for the possibly puzzling title of this post.

Scroll down dear reader but please try to control your cries of dismay at the poor creature I place before you.

Yes this poor tomato is but one victim of the terrible plague which is working its way through the innocent crop in my greenhouse.  My tomatoes have........... BLIGHT!

I don't know if they were infected when I got them, whether we over watered, whether the greenhouse was too humid.  I don't know what's gone wrong but something has.  

I've spent two evenings picking out all the infected leaves, stems and fruit;  the tomatoes look fragile and denuded but I'm hoping that this will keep it under control if only for long enough for the tomatoes that have already grown to ripen up.  

I guess my harvest isn't going to be quite as epic as I'd hoped - in fact it may be almost non-existent.

The good thing is I've learnt from this.  Not to be so greedy and cram so many plants in next time; to space them out more to allow the air to circulate; to keep on top of thinning out the side shoots and nipping out the tops; not to over water them and basically not to think that tomatoes forming their own personal jungle is a sign of health and well being.