It’s the end of the growing at the flat. As the nights draw in, and the clocks get ready to go back, I’m calling time on the herb and tomato plants that have been silently growing on the kitchen window sill and in the spare bedroom. Providing me with fresh produce, both to cook with and to eat, the smell of the leaves and the look of the fruit is still strong, but the plants’ appearance tell a different story.
Just to recap, I’ve been growing the basil and chives since mid-April, and in mid-June, I harvested them for the first time, putting the whole basil leaves and chopped chives in the freezer, to use in future recipes. There was coriander then, too, but this didn’t last very long after the first cutting, and it died fairly soon afterwards.
Spring was definitely the best time to grow them, and the sunny second-floor kitchen window sill the best place to cultivate them. So, last night, I cut the remaining basil leaves from the browning stems off the four plants left, and once again chopped the chives and whizzed the stems with a hand-held blender, so that they can be added to the earlier frozen harvest.
To be honest, they’ve surprised us at how long they’ve lasted, and how much produce we’ve had off them. But, nothing lasts forever, and they were looking very unwell, with furry lime green moss starting to creep up over the top of the peat pots, which are still visible, even though the pots they are in and filled with compost.
If the herbs were looking unwell, the tomato plants were definitely very, very sick, if not already dying. I came home on Sunday night to find drooping and shrivelling leaves pointing to the floor, the one fruit that was left on the browning branches on the floor (though finally yellow), and leaning arms of branches that had snapped and broken.
Growing tomatoes indoors was always going to be an experiment. And one that next year, I probably won’t repeat. Moved into the warm and sunny spare bedroom in early summer, they spurted greatly at first, but the fruit has been terribly slow in coming. All in all, including the fruit which I found on the carpet yesterday, I’ve had a total of three. Yes, three tomatoes in at least four months. Not good granted, but it has been good fun.
It must be the right time for the tomatoes to be done, though, as we took down the other plants at the house at the weekend, and although they were still very healthy compared to the sorry ad yellow droop-stricken stems I have at the flat, they weren’t in the best of spirits either, and had stopped producing the copious amounts of juicy, sweet fruit that we had enjoyed right up until last week.
So, what to grow next? At the moment, I’ll admit that I’m undecided as to what to grow and when to sow. As we’ve not used that much of the frozen stock of herbs, they should last us all winter until next spring. I might try my hand at window sill chilli peppers, cress, garlic chives (we may even try proper garlic at the house), mint, oregano, and rocket, as the seeds are in the packets in the pantry ready to go.
Of course, now the sun may have started to hibernate, and has exchanged his hat for a rain hood and taken his warmth with him, it may be too cold to grow anything. Maybe I’ll have a break, and continue with the winter efforts in the plot at the house. That’s the thing about growing; it’s a constant and ever-changing cycle – just like nature itself.
