Help MBE grow his dinner 2011

Sambucus_Nigra

adelight wrote: »

More disasters! I just keep killing everything with blood and bone- why do I keep doing it?!
My summer squash are doing terrible, after 6 weeks one had a few flowers then I watered with loads of the blood and bone and both wilted a bit and most leaves on the smaller plant dropped off, put outside and now 10 weeks old they are only just recovering and have a few buds on them but no more flowers.
Peppers are awful, also 10 weeks old. They were starting to get flowers but seemed a bit young so I decided to pinch them off when I spotted some aphids. I tried spraying with soapy water but they just keep coming back double and the soapy water seems to be killing the leaves.
Too much blood and bone in water also killed off my little cucumbers and spaghetti squash plants (both were only a few weeks old) and I have obviously put too much in the soil I'm trying to grow broccoletto in as NOTHING will germinate in it!!
It's such a disaster but I can't bring myself to chuck the peppers and squash.

There is some good news, the pumpkin is growing really well. The vine is easily six foot and it has a few female flowers beginning to grow.
My swiss chard, pak choi and perpetual spinach germinated and doing okay so far. These are my last attempt for the year so I will not be letting that blood and bone anywhere near them!!
Cherry tomatoes are really tasty (no idea of variety they were ones I was munching on) and still flowering.

I can't wait for next year now to try again!

Good. Can I ask why you overfeed everything when it doesn't need it?

annie123

Sambucus_Nigra wrote: »

Good. Can I ask why you overfeed everything when it doesn't need it?

I'm sure it wasn't deliberate;) the answer is probably because they are fairly new to gardening.

mrbadexample

Oh, and SN, I'm quite pleased with the gherkins you've grown. You did take your sweet time about it, but eventually came good.

Little_Vics

random stupid question. Will my peppers and chillis fall off the plant when they are ready? I have little red chillis about the size of my thumb nail, so am pretty sure they've got more growing to do - just don't know when I'll know they are ready.

mrbadexample

Little_Vics wrote: »

random stupid question. Will my peppers and chillis fall off the plant when they are ready? I have little red chillis about the size of my thumb nail, so am pretty sure they've got more growing to do - just don't know when I'll know they are ready.

No, they won't fall off, but they should change colour. Did they start off red?

I find size varies enormously with chillies even on the same plant, so don't rely on that. I'll see if I can get a photo of my Wenks Yellow Hot later, as they're changing at the moment.

mrbadexample

Do I have to wait for the seeds to turn black before they're ready to harvest?

mrbadexample

Here's the Wenks. Hopefully you can just see that they're starting to change from yellow. To red, probably. I've never grown them before so I don't know. Might be orange!

mrbadexample

And these tomatoes are Galina, from the Real Seed Co:



I've been impressed with these for three reasons:

1) They ripen early.
2) They taste great (my favourite this year).
3) They produce well. The above photo is of the 7th truss to ripen. Most tomato growers I know advise pinching the plant out after 5 trusses (inside) or 3 trusses (outside) or they won't ripen.

I'll be growing these again next year. :money:

adelight

annie123 wrote: »

I'm sure it wasn't deliberate;) the answer is probably because they are fairly new to gardening.

Yep and I didn't take the warnings not to get it on the actual plant seriously enough, didn't realise it'd completely kill them in 24 hours.

Little_Vics

mrbadexample wrote: »

No, they won't fall off, but they should change colour. Did they start off red?

No - they started off green. I've only got one red one. The picture on the label of the baby plant said they would grow to a couple of inches, and they're about 1/2 an inch now.