I did not hear much grumbling over the periods of cloudy, damp weather in early July. Memories of last year鈥檚 long, hot drought remained too clearly seared in people鈥檚 minds. Now, summer seems to have settled in, hopefully for a while, and keeping our gardens adequately watered will be a key preoccupation.
Many gardens have automatic irrigation systems. Those who rely on old-fashioned, hands-on watering can make it as simple and efficient as possible by setting up watering stations and a routine that covers each area of the garden by turn.
I鈥檓 constantly checking on soil moisture levels with a long-handled, narrow-bladed border shovel. Sinking the blade into the soil and levering the blade forward tells me whether there is moisture well below ground level. I often find dry areas at corners and along bed edges, and under canopies of broad foliage.
For these spots and other pockets of dryness, I鈥檝e taken to hand watering 鈥� a pleasant undertaking in hot weather and efficient, too. A watering wand with a trigger handle makes it easy to aim a gentle shower of water directly onto the soil, with not a drop wasted on pathways or paving.
Both dry ground and parched spirits benefit from the slow and restful practice of hand watering.
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Patio snacks. Despite the less-than-summery June and early-July weather, I had my earliest-ever ripe patio tomato this year. I put that down to an unusually warm April and May that advanced growth and flowering. That same early warmth also brought us extra-early berry harvests.
Even with the cool, cloudy conditions that followed, I picked my first ripe Siderno tomato on July听3. For the past three years Siderno (William Dam Seeds) has delivered the first ripe tomatoes on the patio, previously around mid-July. Siderno is also the most intensely flavourful tomato I鈥檝e ever grown in patio containers.
Siderno was developed in Germany for urban gardens and containers. The 45-cm-tall plants are easily supported by a tomato cage stuck into the pot at transplanting time.
Another repeat variety on the patio this year is Red Robin. Seed is available from several catalogues. My source was T&T Seeds. Red Robin is very compact and prolific, with crowded clusters of tomatoes draped over the edge of its pot.
A new tomato in the potted patio group this year is Little Napoli, a new listing in the T&T Seeds catalogue. I was attracted to the variety for its oval Roma-style fruits.
The plants did not disappoint. They are just slightly shorter than Siderno, and attractively neat within a tomato cage. The hefty clusters of sizeable (five-cm-long) tomatoes are decorative, the fruits tasty and Roma-like meaty in texture.
On the same T&T Seeds catalogue page as Little Napoli, among an array of container edibles, I found Toscana, a small ornamental-edible strawberry that has won a European Fleuroselect Gold Medal award. Seed is also available from W.H. Perron (previously Dominion Seed House).
The Toscana seeds germinated in 10 days to produce pleasant clumps of dark green leaves. The plants are producing gorgeous deep pink flowers and shiny little berries in a patio planter. It will be interesting to see how this 鈥渆verbearing鈥� variety produces over the season, and how the plants fare over the winter and into next year.
Apt and ornamental companions for the tomatoes are three neat little hedges of small-leaved basils in windowbox-style planters, and a potted trailing rosemary currently embellished with drop-in visitor pansies.
The three basil planters give me enough of the herb for several batches of pesto and for flavouring the roasted tomatoes I like to have in the freezer for use over the winter.
Every batch is different, but the basic blend is chopped larger tomatoes or halved cherry tomatoes placed in a shallow baking pan and topped with cut-up basil and minced garlic. After adding a drizzle of olive oil and some freshly ground salt, I roast the mixture at around 300 F, turning the tomatoes occasionally, until it is thickened.
Sometimes I add minced onion, and rosemary or oregano. I like the roasted-tomato blend served in dollops atop slices of cheese on crackers, though it鈥檚 nice, too, on a piece of torn baguette and in an open-faced baked sandwich spread over thinly sliced onion and topped with cheese.
