Pig gets blown away! - Sep 08, 2017

Make your own Tomato sauce?

Dear gardening friends
We have been so busy this week despite the horrible wind. Spring is here, and gardeners are busy planting flowers and vegetables.

We have had a great response to our Tim's Italian Tomato. I discovered this variety while holidaying in La Aquila in Italy. This is where my wife's family is from. We ate these Pear shaped tomatoes and just couldn't believe how sweet they were. Tomatoes are fruit, but store bought tomatoes don't taste like fruit.

Tim's Italian Tomato is soft when ripe, and the fruit have fewer seeds, so it just tastes sweeter. Italians use this variety, to make their tomato sauces.

You can grow it in pots, or grow it in your vegetable garden. If you are growing tomatoes in pots, have a look at the photo above. We do regular Potting Mix trials on our own Potting mixes just to make sure that we are only selling the best. If our mixes ever fail our trials, we are straight onto our supplier to make improvements.

Last month we bought a couple of bags of Potting Mix from Woolies to see if plants really do grow in $3.50 and $6.00 Potting Mix. We planted Silverbeet seedlings into the bags at the same time. The results are amazing. The plants in the cheaper bags haven't grown a new leaf since planting.

The seedlings in our Regular and Tim's Best Potting Mix have all grown. Check out the photo. Somebody was so impressed with the growth of the Silverbeet seedlings in Tim's Best Potting Mix, they decided to take two plants.
We have replanted these.

So if you are growing Silverbeet, Tomatoes or flowers this Spring in pots, just be careful which mixes you choose. We were surprised last spring when we discovered that even some Premium Australian Standard Potting Mixes failed to make plants grow.
This standard is a joke. It's all about Soil porosity ,compaction and water holding capacity rather than, does it make plants grow?

It's still quite cold at night, but I am more confident about planting Cucumbers, Capsicum, chillies and Basil now. These vegetables and herbs are more cold sensitive than other seedlings. If you plant them now you should have success.

If you are making a new vegetable garden, and getting bulk soil delivered, just remember that "Premium Garden Mix" is Premium by name only. It's actually a starter mix, that will need to be improved with Tim's Cow Manure, and Fast Food Fertiliser if you want your seedlings to grow. These bulk mixes are nutrient deficient. Once you have dug the Manure thru the mix, cover with Sugar Cane. This will lock in the moisture and help your seedlings to grow.

We do sell Garden Mix in bags. This really is a premium product, that will grow vegetables and flowers successfully.

Why do suppliers sell mixes that plants won't grow in? It's all about profit. Fertiliser costs money and customers ring around looking for the cheapest product.

If you love flowers, come and walk through our nursery. All our displays are full of beautiful flowering plants that will just make you smile!

We have a new Geranium called "BIGSPLASH". This amazing looking plant has iridescent pink flowers that really pop.
Geraniums, love this hot dry weather, so if you're looking for a plant that will survive in a pot, or in the garden, with little care, then BIGSPLASH could be perfect.

This Geranium was bred by the same breeder who brought us "BIG RED". I have this Geranium growing in big terracotta pots at my place and it hasn't stopped flowering. It's spectacular!

If you're concerned about the price of these fancy new varieties, don't forget that they are easy to grow from cuttings, so once you've got one, you can grow 101.

Pig's turned a little bit crazy with all this wind. Talk about huff and puff. His brother lost the straw house in conditions like this.

The wind is drying out the lawns and gardens around Macarthur. It's a good time to apply Wettasoil to all your pots, garden beds, and lawn.

Wettasoil is an agricultural detergent that removes the oily barrier and allows your soil to accept water again. Simply mix it in your watering can, and apply it to your gardens. We love this product, and we use it in the nursery.

If you're buying plants this weekend, make sure you plant them. With wind and hot temperatures forecast, your plants are more likely to survive in the ground, than left to sit ,in pots on the concrete.

Dunk all your plants in a bucket of water just prior to planting and water daily until they establish. We need rain urgently.

Come and see us if you need help.
Happy gardening
Tim