Stormy weather ahead!

The weather forecast for our part of the world in the next 24 hours looks dire!  Strong winds, and 50 - 80mm of rainfall... Oh, the joys of the English Summer!

I have had some issues recently with top-heavy tomato and tomatillo plants being toppled by the wind, sometimes with disastrous consequences. For example, look a this tomatillo plant. The weight of the fruit, combined with a perhaps too-flimsy cane support, and some strong gusts of wind proved too much for it.

A casualty!

You will notice that I had weighted-down the plant pot with a couple of bricks, to aid stability. In view of the above-mentioned weather forecast, I have today applied the same precaution to all my tomato and tomatillo pots. It certainly makes the pots less liable to blow over in the wind, but it obviously can't stop the stems or canes breaking.

I contemplated the situation as per the above photo, and decided that this particular tomatillo plant was beyond repair, so I picked all the fruit that was reasonably mature, and put the plant itself in the compost bin. (Knowing my luck, I expect I will have hordes of tomatillos seedlings in my compost next year, from all the immature fruit that I discarded... Here's a picture of the tomatillo harvest:

The tomatillo harvest

Jane is busily trying to find some more recipes for things to make with tomatillos!