Tomatoes

I originally planted a couple of heirloom tomatoes because I wanted a photo of one for the cover of Echoes of Narcissus. I ordered seeds for three varieties online, as well as seeds for tomatillos because I’ve never tasted one. It’s covered in flowers now, so – exciting times.

I also bought a couple of varieties of chillies – including one that’s guaranteed to blow steam out of your ears. I like it hot. They took a long time to grow, although I did use a photo of one of the heirloom seedlings on my cover, so mission accomplished. Now that the bushes are finally starting to bear, I’m even more chuffed because I can get some fabulous photos of the fruit themselves, and also use them in recipes for Princess Sithole’s Africolonial recipe book that I’ll publish later this year after my Shadow People books for 2015. When I have enough chillies, I’ll share my secret chilli sauce recipe here too. It’ll knock your socks off – probably more than your socks.

I really miss having all my veggies home grown. The stuff you buy from supermarkets doesn’t taste right to me, so I’m planning on planting quite a few more things this autumn too, and hoping to make purple tomato sauce and dayglo tomato soup for the recipe book. This writing lark really rocks my boat in all sorts of cool ways. Amazing how wanting a little element for a cover can make life so much more interesting.