Why Do Supermarkets Taste So Bland?

For me even the organ vine-ripened varieties don’t come a patch to one freshly picked from my own plant. The thing about supermarkets is that choose varieties that look good on display, have a long shelf life and are not easily damaged by customer handling. They also stop the fruit from fully ripening by putting it cool storage. If you want really tasty tomatoes, my golden rule is never ever put them in the fridge.

Tomatoes are very easy to grow. Virtually any container, some decent compost, a bottle of liquid feed and your away. The problem is that it’s a bit late to start growing them from seed. Late in the season the plants on sale can also look a bit sad. Fortunately, tomatoes are exceptionally easy to grow from cuttings. Take a side shoot, trim the bottom and remove all but the top four leaves. Poke it into a pot of compost and it will start growing within a week or so.

If you don’t know a friend or neighbour who will give you a small bit of one their plants to get started, even starved and leggy plants from market stalls can be made young and healthy again if you use it for cuttings.

Written By Alistair Ayres

Victoria Park Fayre - Bank Holiday

All at little green space are looking forward to seeing you at the Victoria Park Paradise Gardens Bank Holiday fayre!

We'll be there with some new surprise products including our new 'Optima' - our new deluxe top end pre-planted window box. This box contains some new more exotic and specialist plants and will be the envy of the neighbourhood.

Please come and say hi if you are there and tell us how your boxes are getting on.