Help MBE grow his dinner 2011

Fay

Thanks guys, I have already started to remove a lot of the lower leaves and yes, the upper ones are touching the glass in a lot of places. I have been given some green mesh though that goes in the green house and stops the sun scorching plants (apparently) so will put that on at the weekend.

I have to say I am disappointed with how few tomatoes I have on my plants-first year growing so it's a good lesson I guess. I only have 2 varieties growing, gardeners delight and premium suncherry. The former I have 9 plants of and approximately 20 fruits on, the latter I have 3 plants of and about 5 fruits! Not a great yeald huh?

In other areas: my potatoes have now all been harvested and eaten and were delicious. They took up a lot of the veg plot but were a real success and I think I will do them again, but perhaps in bags next year because of rotation.
Peas-have had one harvest so far of not very many peas and one little caterpillar/worm :eek: but I didn't plant many plants to begin with then did another two pots and some in the ground-so we shall see.
Dwarf french beans are a bit of a disaster-I only planted 9 seeds and all germinated and have grown but something is not feasting on the plants. I have beans on them but they are O shaped-extremely curled up!
Carrots-not ready yet
Leeks I planted out at the weekend, I hope they will be ok but I suspect far too late.
Blueberries were doing great but we hadn't put net on them...lets just say the birds love it!
Blackcurrants are growing well, but I don't like them ha ha. The bush was planted by the previous owner.
We have had about 8 raspberries but only planted the canes march time so not bad.
The big success has been the chillis-I am growing early jalapenos and pretty in purple, both of which are going great. Really healthy looking plants with lots of fruits on them-have already eaten some jalapenos and very nice too, but quite hot!
The peppers are also doing ok, I'm growing king of the north and kaibi, both from the real seed company.

I already have plans for next year and putting raised beds in and adding an extra bed to the area we have. I just planted lots this year to see what worked and what was worth persuing. I will try to do some pics later. :T

Lotus-eater

Fay wrote: »

Thanks guys, I have already started to remove a lot of the lower leaves and yes, the upper ones are touching the glass in a lot of places. I have been given some green mesh though that goes in the green house and stops the sun scorching plants (apparently) so will put that on at the weekend.

I have to say I am disappointed with how few tomatoes I have on my plants-first year growing so it's a good lesson I guess. I only have 2 varieties growing, gardeners delight and premium suncherry. The former I have 9 plants of and approximately 20 fruits on, the latter I have 3 plants of and about 5 fruits! Not a great yeald huh?

There must be a reason why your plants have so few fruit on them.

Have you sideshooted them?
Watered enough?
Have the flowers fallen off?
What's gone wrong?

Fay

Lotus eater-I don't know what's gone wrong I have taken the side shoots off (as far as I know, I did check the pics online how to do it!), water twice a day and make sure I don't let the compost dry out, there are still lots of flowers near the top that haven't yet developed into fruit, and always lots of bees in the greenhouse as it's next to the apple tree so they wander around in there all day. So I really don't know

Here are some update pics anyway, feel free to laugh

Curly french beans!


Miniature white cucumber-so far living up to it's name, it's miniscule!


A few of my rare tomatoes-any clues in the pic lotus-eater???


Just a few of the early jalapenos


Some of my peppers-when would you expect to be harvesting peppers?


Finally pretty in purple chillis-beautiful and abundant!

Lotus-eater

No, no clues in the photo, I can just see one truss and that looks normal. Where are the other trusses?

mrbadexample

Soft rot in some of my turnips:





And these are supposed to be peppers - don't know what sort but they're not very big:



At least there're plenty of them.

mrbadexample

Can I compost the rotten turnips?

LilacPixie

i think so. the peppers look like the point red mini sweet peppers. Like the ones in pepadew jars. I grew them last year.

Fay

Lotus-eater wrote: »

No, no clues in the photo, I can just see one truss and that looks normal. Where are the other trusses?

On the other plants, I don't think any plants have more than one truss. I will take some more tomato pics later.
I do think they're a bit too tightly packed into the greenhouse and some are in smaller pots than I intended, but I don't know if I can re-pot them once they're flowering?

[Deleted User]

you have too many leaves on your tomatoes. Get rid of all those surrounding any trusses with any sign of baby tomatoes, give them light and air, Water once a day and vary the amount according to the sun, feed with a very good tomato fertiliser every 2 weeks (I use one from gardenorganic)

I have been doing this for weeks now and my vines are groaning with the weight of tomatoes, including outdoor ones. They are ripening and I am down to one leaf per plant now. Don`t worry about photpsynthesis as the green stem and green tomatoes also do this.

You say they are in pots, ok that makes watering more difficult, so sink empty half bottles into each pot to help water get to the roots. If your plants are so packed then you should be drastic with leaf cutting to expose your trusses. Your plants don`t want to flower as the energy is going into the leaves. You should end up with 1 tall stem with 4 trusses (too late now to have 5) and give a gentle tap once a day

Fay

Brilliant, thanks kittie that's really helpful. I shall be out there later (if I get home in time) or the weekend and get chopping! I thought I had taken lots off already but it's good to know I can still go further and further. I've taken some pics this morning of the whole greenhouse and some of the fruits but can't post pics from work so will do that tonight. Thanks again guys-maybe I will have a handful of tomatoes to eat this year