This weekend has seen the first seed sown this season.  Granted they were sown indoors, but still, its a good milestone.  The first seeds in are my tomatoes.  I normally get given more mature plants by my wife’s grandfather (and probably will still get some) but this year I wanted to give them a go from seed.

Tomato plants have been one of my best producing plants since starting my garden a couple of years ago and gave us almost a years supply of Ragu. This year I am looking to add tomato soup to the dishes produced from my garden.

Sowing tomatoes is relatively simple, compost into a tray, pop in the seeds with enough spacing to allow growth, cover the seeds with a shallow layer of compost, add water and leave in a warm, light area.  My seeds are now sitting on the windowsill of my kitchen and in the next 7-14 days I should see the plants breaking through surface of the compost.

Anyone who has grown tomatoes will tell you that this is the easy bit.  They need a fair amount of attention if you want a good yield; plenty of water and feed will be required later this year.

It has been difficult over the last couple of weeks to keep on top of the work in the garden.  A virus has been going around and I picked it up last week.  It jumped straight to the chest making any work in the cold and damp difficult.  But things are better and  have managed to turn over 2 of my 3 main beds.  This year I will rotate my beds and it has been a job to clear one of the beds of old potatoes.  Things are slowly getting ready for the growing season.

With the first seeds sown, and the promise of a good year, I am now enjoying a nice glass of red wine and dreaming of all the fresh food I will enjoy this year.