Roll back the years with...

...a tomato plant. Of course.

What a great smell it is, pinching out the side shoots of those gro-bag tomato plants. It takes me back almost 30 years to my grandpa's greenhouse on the South side of Glasgow. The heady combined aromas of tomato plants, creosote and grass clippings make for an amazing olfactory memory. As a matter of fact, a cousin of mine visited a few years back and I made him sniff the inside of our shed to see if he'd agree that it smelled exactly like our Grandpa Michael's and prove to my other half that I'd not quite lost it. Thankfully he concurred. On the smell, not the losing it.

On the gardening theme, a neighbour gave us a couple of these yesterday:

Celeriac plants. Good stuff for mash with a nice fish dish. The celeriac itself of course, not simply the planty bit. I digress. He'd no instructions for what to do with them so I just bunged them in the greenhouse for want of any better suggestions. A quick flick through Grow Your Own Veg by the BBC's Carol Klein recommends getting them planted out around now with a view to harvesting in mid-autumn. Sounds good. Especially the labour-saving mention of only watering every 5-10 days.

Apparently it's "hugely versatile...and can be used in soups and salads...the French grate it into a Dijon mustard mayonnaise." What? All of them? Is it compulsory over there? Good grief...