The Brandywine Verdict (And the Big Chili Harvest)

The Brandywines are ripe. I ate the first one straight off the vine last weekend, sliced thick, with nothing but a bit of salt. It was one of the best tomatoes I've ever eaten. The texture is meaty rather than watery, and the flavour is genuinely complex — sweet, slightly acidic, with a depth that most supermarket tomatoes don't have at all. It was worth the extra attention.

The downside: the yield is low. Where the Sungolds produced dozens of fruits per plant, each Brandywine plant has maybe 8–10 large fruits on it. If you're growing for quantity, this is not your tomato. If you're growing for the experience of eating something exceptional, it absolutely is.

Chili Harvest 2025

I planted only two chili plants this year after last year's surplus, which turned out to be exactly the right call. Both plants are loaded with fruit in various stages of ripening — some still green, some turning yellow, some a deep red. I've been picking the ripe ones every few days.

This year I'm planning a smaller batch of chili sauce than last year. Maybe four or five jars rather than the twelve I ended up with in 2024. I've also got a plan to dry some of them in the oven at a very low temperature, which should give me chili flakes for the whole winter.

Back Inside: August Plant Notes

The Thai Constellation has settled in beautifully. It pushed out its first new leaf under my care last week — small, but with the classic speckled variegation throughout. I'm relieved. A new plant that refuses to grow for weeks makes me anxious, so that new leaf was very welcome.

The regular Monstera is now in its bigger pot and looking extremely happy about it. The root system was impressive when I repotted it — it had completely filled the previous pot in a dense, healthy mass.