World of Chig   

2.1.06

Global warming - the evidence mounts up...

In the Summer, I was given two tiny tomato plant cuttings by a colleague. I enjoyed tending to them on my kitchen windowsill, having made the mistake in 2004 of trying to grow tomatoes outside and watching them perform miserably. This time around, they grew upwards much more quickly, but didn't produce much fruit; only one tomato on one plant and six on the other. As I mentioned to my colleague, after spending £1.49 on a bottle of Baby Bio plant feed, I had spent more money than it would have cost to buy seven cherry tomatoes in the shops. "That's not the point," he correctly pointed out. Indeed it's not. Since enjoying the tomatoes - and they tasted absolutely delicious, which surely is the point - something strange happened. Even though the leaves started to wither away, I continued watering. The plants then flowered again and produced a second batch of fruit. Yesterday, I was able to take this New Year's Day photo of the two remaining tomatoes. There were actually four, but I had left them there a bit too long, just for the sake of a New Year photo opportunity, and two others fell off when I touched them! Still, Winter tomatoes, not in a greenhouse, who would have thought?

Further evidence of the unusually mild weather:

I went for a New Year's Day cycle ride yesterday. (Actually, I had to, in order to pick up my car from where I'd left it in Moseley for the NYE party.) It wasn't even slightly cold though. I know I'm conveniently ignoring last Thursday, when temperatures didn't rise above freezing all day here in Birmingham, but it really does feel unseasonally mild. (Thursday was the only day in recent weeks that I haven't taken my camera to work, so I have no pictures of the beautiful frosted trees that lined the road outside our office. It rained on Thursday night and destroyed the whole effect. Grrr.)


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