As sweet as honey? - Aug 28, 2015
Dear Gardening Friends,
Spring will start with a bang next week after all that beautiful rain. Good gardeners know that the best time to plant is after rain. It doesn’t matter how often you water it just doesn’t beat water that falls from the sky. It seems to be full of nutrients and that’s why everything turns bright green so fast. If you have been thinking about planting trees and shrubs then do it now.
I had a customer in yesterday who doesn’t grow tomatoes because they can buy them from ALDI. I felt so sorry for them because you have never really eaten a tomato unless it’s been picked ripe from the vine. The fruit you buy in the supermarkets is as hard as a cricket balls and it has no taste. This fruit has to be hard so it can be transported all over Australia. At Tim’s we specialise in the heirloom tomatoes. These have been grown for taste rather than transportability.
If you are looking for a sweet tasting fruit then plant one of our Tim’s Fruit Fly Resistant tomatoes. You can allow the fruit to ripen on the vine and it doesn’t get stung by fruit fly. Pick them when they are that deep red colour, then cut them in half, drizzle with olive oil and add heaps of salt. Mix this thru then eat them at room temperature. They taste amazing on Turkish toast!
Our Tim’s Giant Tomato seedlings have turned up this week. This variety comes from America and was bred during the depression. Only one flower pollinates from each bunch of flowers so you get less fruit but they grow to an enormous size. When you cut this tomato open it has less seeds and thicker flesh. This is what gives it that amazing tomato taste. You will have to pick these tomatoes just as they start to turn yellow then bring them inside and ripen on the window sill. This variety is not fruit fly resistant.
Basil seedlings have turned up this week too. We are always pessimistic about planting basil too early because it has no frost resistance. But we are less likely to get a late frost now that the soil is full of warm water. We will have at least 5 varieties of basil in the next couple of weeks. Basil tastes sensational when eaten with tomatoes. Chop it up fine and mix it with the olive oil and salt.
There is a worldwide shortage of bees And without them none of us would be eating tomatoes. It just makes sense that we should be encouraging more bees into our gardens. The Macarthur Bee Keeping Club is coming to our nursery this Saturday at 2pm to tell you how to encourage more bees to visit your garden. There will also be a bee keeping workshop so you can find out how to keep a bee hive in your garden. You can even taste honey made right here in Macarthur. Its free! Just bring a folding chair. See you on Saturday at 2pm. I have had a bee hive in my garden for over 30 years without a problem.
I hope you took my advice and fertilised your lawn last week . If you did, then you will notice that your lawn is already turning green. Blake fertilised our lawn on Thursday with Tim’s Rapid results Lawn Food. This turbo charged fertiliser has 21% Nitrogen so it can turn your grass bright green in just 14 days. (Shirleys No17 only has 9% Nitrogen). The easy to carry 4kg bag will fertilise 260m2 of lawn. It’s cheap, you can buy a bag for $23.99 or buy 2 for $40. It will keep your grass green for the next 3 months.
Petunias have arrived in potted colour. Gardeners love these hardy sun loving annuals because they flower all spring and summer. Plant them in pots or hanging baskets and they will spill over the sides and flower non-stop. Trick up your old potting mix with some planting compost for best results. We have pink and red flowering petunias this week but other colours will be arriving soon. You can buy 4 of these for $12.00.
Studies have found that flowers make you happy!
Pig has been cashing in on Jarryd Haynes success claiming he went to the same school. Pig is a terrible speller so you won’t be seeing him on the Spelling Bee any time soon.
Happy Spring Gardening
Tim