Growing greenhouse plants outside?

emilyka

Hi everyone,

Wondered if you could share your pearls of wisedom :j. As a newbie allotment holder (since October/ November) I am looking to grow, amongst others, chillies, tomatoes and aubergines in my allotment. I had great success with tomatoes and chillies in pots in my garden last year but as the plot is fairly exposed to the elements and I will be planting direct into the ground should I be taking any precautions with cloches etc once the plants are a reasonable size? Or could I do what i did in the garden, cloch with medium cloches over the pot until the plants outgrown the cloches and then remove and leave naked ?

I am thinking about building a cold frame of sorts (out of wood and corrugated plastic or similar), would this provide a worthwhile solution?

Ta Muchly,
Em

conradmum

The main problem with growing tomatoes on allotments is that they tend to get blight from the potatoes. If you want to avoid this try to get hold of Ferline, which is blight resistant.

The tomatoes will probably be okay, the chillies and aubergines need the heat more. It will really depend on what kind of summer we have as to whether they'll be successful or not. I think if you can house them in some way that would be ideal, or at the very least erect a windbreak in the direction of the prevailing wind.

emilyka

conradmum wrote: »

The main problem with growing tomatoes on allotments is that they tend to get blight from the potatoes. If you want to avoid this try to get hold of Ferline, which is blight resistant.

The tomatoes will probably be okay, the chillies and aubergines need the heat more. It will really depend on what kind of summer we have as to whether they'll be successful or not. I think if you can house them in some way that would be ideal, or at the very least erect a windbreak in the direction of the prevailing wind.

Thank you very much- that's great help. What is Ferline? I've only started veggies in the last few years and am very much trial and error!!

conradmum

Ferline is a variety of tomato. They're on this page if you want to read the blurb

http://www.thompson-morgan.com/seeds1/group/tomato.html

I've grown this variety for a few years and although I can't say I've never lost any plants to blight, they've definitely resisted it for a lot longer than other varieties when it' been a bad year.

I've known gardeners grow loads of tomato plants from seed, nurture them for months, then lose the lot to blight without picking a single fruit, so be careful!