Heinz has launched it’s first gardening scheme and asked us if we would like to try and grow our own tomatoes.

I am not a natural gardener…I would like to be but have a few *ahem* phobias to slimy creepy crawlies which prevents me being able to get my hands dirty even with gardening gloves on. A slight issue if you want to do gardening. However I have fond memories of eating the produce my mum used to grow when I was a child and she still always grew her own tomatoes in later years, so I thought it would be lovely to let the children get their hands dirty instead with me overseeing all matters important! 😉

Heinz sent us a lovely kit to get us started including San Marzano tomato seeds. I nearly managed to half kill myself by buying the most ridiculous size of compost. I didn’t think I would ever be able to transfer it from the trolley to the car. It was soooo heavy! Of course no knights in shining armour came to my aid even though I kept doing a sad face and lots of huffs and puffs. It’s okay, I lived to tell the tale but lesson learned…park nearer knights in shining armour next time because they probably couldn’t hear or see my distress.

We waited patiently for the snow to stop and on the first sunny and relatively warm day that appeared we got outside as quickly as we could. With a little advice from the very lovely Chris at Thinly Spread who is the fount of all knowledge, on everything, we took our first tentative steps into gardening.

Heinz have launched a facebook app with handy hints, photos, recipes and games. You can also get free seeds from them to start your own tomato planting.

What did we do?

In simple terms we;

1. Filled our pots halfway with peat free compost ( because Chris said that was best for tomatoes 🙂 )
2. Carefully put a couple of seeds into each pot
3. Covered the seeds with some more compost
4. Gave them a good water without drowning them
5. Place them in the kitchen where the warmth will hopefully help them to grow
6. Watered them everyday…

and did we have any success? Well we will let you know….watch this space!

Disclosure : We have been sent a starter kit including seeds from Heinz to get us going and have also been seduced by a lovely incentive from Heinz for writing about our journey