Thanks to everyone who responded to the survey I put out there a while ago looking for help with my balcony dilemmas. As promised, here is the upshot of the crowd’s decisions!

1. Should I put the tomato plants outside in the unpredictable Irish weather?

At the time I took the results, the winning option was to put the cherry tomato plants out, which I did. It does seem that the option to leave them both in the greenhouse had a late resurgence though. Luckily enough we have had a mild couple of months (In Ireland, mild=good in the summer) and the tomato plants have flourished outside, arguably moreso than the two left in the greenhouse. There are plenty of green tomatoes appearing so it’s just a matter of getting them to ripen. More on that in the next post!

2. What should be done about our greenfly infestation?

As it turns out,  this question probably should have read – ” What should be done about our greenfly, spider mite, fly, flea beetle, caterpillar, etc. infestation?” I actually ended up trying three of these options in the end!

First up was soapy water. I tried spraying, showering and bathing, with mixed success. Well it failed really – even dunking the whole plants in a bath of soapy water. It’s also a significant inconvenience as you can imagine and makes you feel like a bit of a twit!

Next I introduced a ladybird but it went AWOL with no significant improvement. I might have needed more than one though in fairness.

Lastly I tried an all-in-one, spray today / eat tomorrow bug spray containing pyrethrins. I’m not sure if this is organic per se but from googling and reading the back of the spray it definitely doesn’t seem evil. There’s planty of room between organic and evil right?

This has worked wonders and there is a noticeable improvement in all the plants concerned. I’m looking forward to chilis being back on the menu.

3. …how should I deal with these uber-tall potato plants?

I tied up the potato plants to stop them breaking as suggested. It turns out I didn’t really need to as they all just died down anyway. The leaves seemed to be attacked by flea beetles along the way for good measure. I was expecting them to go on to flower before harvesting so this was a tad disappointing:

I started rooting around down one end of the trough for potatoes and found some (400 grams) which we duly ate. They were nice too!

A potato-eating action shot:

Thanks again to all that voted. Next up I am going to look at how to cut back tomato plants to maximize yield and ensure ripening. Anyone with any ideas or experience in the area, please send ‘em on!