The best tomatoes e.v.e.r.

I've gone quite minimalist with my garden in that I have three 1mx1m raised beds, a few plants in a small section and a strip along the back wall. I decided to primarily grow edibles in the boxes. For pretty there are some flowers, all of which have actually self seeded.

In my boxes I have tomatoes (all but one of the four plants must have self seeded from last year's attempts), parsley, mint, basil (growing crazy), two chilli plants and three brinjal plants.

Along the back wall I have five cherry tomato plants, one full-size tomato plant (gifted to me by a friend), some grasses and a standard iceberg rose.

On Sunday morning I spent some time staking my tomatoes and marvelling at how amazing they are looking. Strong, healthy and with an abundance of tomatoes on each plant - both the cherry tomatoes and the full size ones. I've never had much luck with full-size tomatoes - these are magnificent. I'm also quite surprised about the plants that just came up. They could be from my attempt last year at growing some of my old seeds for some heirloom varieties - I'm not quite sure what I have there.

I've done some veggie gardening in years past and cherry tomatoes always faired from ok to good. These... they're my best e.v.e.r.

I totally put it down to my compost from my YOLO Compost Tumblers. For the first time I have an abundance of nutrient-rich compost on hand and every time a shell of compost matures, I toss it into the beds.

Without a laboratory analysis I know that my YOLO compost is better than bought compost because it has so much more added to it than grass and leaves. All of my veggie cuttings and trimmings go into it as well as things like egg shells (calcium rich), coffee grounds (from Celliers), tea leaves (from me) and odd bits of fruit. It comes out dark and rich and, evidently, tomatoes love it.

Take a lookie...

The marigold self-seeded too. It is one plant that is COVERED in flowers - like I have never had before.