Rampant Tomatoes!

I don't know about anyone else but I'm not having much luck with the chilli, aubergine or pepper plants I got this year.I only have one of each, which I'm now glad of but they've really been disappointing. I did have quite a few chillies but kept finding a single hole munched through each one. After some googling, I found out it was most likely caterpillars who seem to think that a chilli makes a nice sleeping bag!

I know that I'm going to be scraping out the inside as I don't use the seeds but even after washing them, the thought that a caterpillar had taken a kip in the chilli rather put me off eating them, so they got whizzed. I've grown them many times before and never had this problem so I'm not sure what the difference is. If anyone has any ideas, or has also been bothered by them, I'd love to hear. And whilst I know I could spray them, that's not how I garden so it's been a squirt of washing up liquid solution t try and get rid of the blighters.

The tomatoes on the other hand, after a bit of a slow start thanks to the rotten weather we had at the beginning of the season, have now romped away. So much so, in fact, that one has gone a bit rampant and collapsed onto the ground the other day, taking the steel support with it and putting a nice bend in it! It is now scaffolding up a bit - I was going to post a pic of this Heath Robinson solution but Blogger doesn't want to play tonight so I'll have to try again another day.

Suffice to say, I am now just hoping that we have enough warmth and sun to ripen the many fruits that are now on the plants. I had a tonne last year and then they just rotten on the vines. Having always been used to making enough soup and pasta sauce from my own tomatoes to last us through the winter previously, this was not a pleasant turn of events, as you can imagine. So fingers are crossed for this year.

But I have to say, the ones that have been picked so far have been delicious!