Window ledge review

This is the second year of growing things on my home office window ledge. It wasn’t such a good year, but I have some reasons.

Tomato shades

This was taken mid-September. I’d already harvested the basil (which was in the pot with the yellow fly-catcher), and actually I had a good year for basil. I’ve got enough basil cubes in the freezer to get me through the winter, which is the main point.

So what went wrong? Well, I sowed everything after we got back from Florida, and it was probably a bit late. Then either the compost I used was less fertile than normal, or the wicks that I reused to pull the water up from the base of the pots weren’t working so well. Either way, the the tomatoes and the chillis stayed very small and refused to put on any flowers, and the basil stayed really weedy. It didn’t improve until I started feeding them. So that pushed the fruit back even further.

I thinned out the tomato leaves a lot, and all of the tomatoes on them pretty much ripened in one hit. So in the end we got a decent bowlful of cherry tomatoes. The chillis have produced some, but none of them have ripened yet. I’ve stripped them off the plants and hopefully they’ll ripen on a warm window ledge.

Ok, so it's not the best harvest ever. But for two plants on a window ledge I don't think it's that bad. I need the windows clear now though!
Tiny chilli harvest

I also tried putting tomatoes in after I’d harvested my pots of new potatoes. They didn’t have time to ripen. Lesson learnt. And even my parsley plants have what looks like mildew (too dry).

What did work then? The new potatoes from the pots are lovely. Really tasty and a great texture. The bush beans I put in after the potatoes worked pretty well too, so that’s good, and I’ve still got some chard to come. The basil was, in the end, pretty epic. And using a couple of old fridge shelves as support for the tomatoes worked really well too. Also (in the silver-lining category) the plants were small enough that when we were away in August for one of the hottest weeks of the year they didn’t die of thirst.

And for next year? I have a different type of chilli to plant. I also have a work trip in the first week of February, so I’m going to use that as a marker and try to get the seeds sown before I go. I’ve got my eye on a couple of new places for outdoor tomato plants, and I have some mange tout and more prolific (hopefully) beans to plant too. Oh, and I’m hoping to use the freezer with my currants to give me time to try and actually use some of them too!

Slowly but surely, my home grown produce is increasing again. Yay!


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