Lemon a day

   size 6 in x 12 in 15cm x 30cm charcoal and wash on heavy weight rag paper

Today and for the last few days DIY dad has been playing musical chairs with the radiators downstairs, this is a rush job as soon we will need functioning radiators- we will have reached the equinox in the morning. First of all a new rad. appeared in the dining room, and then one disappeared in the downstairs loo, then another went in this room and its replacement which used to be in the dining room can’t be put on the wall because the screws are wrong, or the rawl plugs, some small but vital widget is not what it seemed at first and its absence then derails the whole process.

What with that and a rather unsuccessful woody walk I got a little late in the picture painting but here are the maddest of the tomatoes. One looks like a teapot and the others are just rude.

Yes, it seems that the unending supply of ceps has ended.

Yesterday we uprooted all the tomato plants and brought the fruit inside. I will burn the haulms as there is a little blight on them. The tomatoes were bred to have some resistance to blight which may be how they have survived so long outside.

I set up the dessicator to heat the green tomatoes to 40 degrees for twelve hours, if this helps there will be a huge supply of ripening tomatoes. The idea is that the heat does not damage the fruit but finishes off the blight so that it doesn’t infect all the ripening fruit. See article in The Organic way issue 200. www.gardeningorganic.org.uk/tow

 #130 a painting a day by Alison Warner on her lemon a day art blog