The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Growing => Vegetables => Topic started by: GribinIsaf on June 29, 2019, 09:42:08 pm
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In previous years, after using the greenhouse for germinating and potting on we have had tomatoes in there. This year the tomatoes are all fixed up elsewhere and wondering what people have going on in their greenhouse at this time of year?
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Tomatoes, aubergine, cucumbers, chilli peppers, basil between tomatoes.
Last year had "doodi", nitbsure how to spell it but it's some sort of gourd.
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toms, peppers & chillis, radish and sp onion (actually ones outside doing better), lettuce
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Not a lot - chillies :chili: :chili: :chili: :chili: . Err - that's it. (everything else is in the polytunnel or outside)
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Not a lot - chillies :chili: :chili: :chili: :chili: . Err - that's it. (everything else is in the polytunnel or outside)
By saying I grow in the greenhouse I actually meant polytunnel too
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Yes, I should have said, we have got loads of veg in the polytunnels including tomatoes, peppers, aubergines, sweetcorn and loads of salad. In the past, after the sowing frenzy of the first part of the year I have run out of steam and, to a certain extent, space as the greenhouse was full of tomatoes. This year I want to try and keep on sowing and bringing on things for later. I made new greenhouse benches complete with capillary matting at the start of this season and I don';t want them to remain unused over the next few months!
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Tom's, (5 varieties) peppers (4 varieties)chilli, basil, spring onions, early courgettes, cucumbers, melons, squash
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1 (yes 1!) cherry tomato plant
It's a very small grow house :roflanim:
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Tomatoes, cucumber, dwarf French beans, peas, carrots, basil, couple of squashes, salad stuff
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I've tried something new this year - with great success.
Mini cucumbers. Very tasty, and prolific!
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Supermarket ginger in a 20 litre plant pot tub this time last year .
It grew to about three foot tall and had increased in size from 1& 1/2 inches with growing nodes to about five inches long and boy was it different to the half dried stuff you get in the shops . Turned three big pieces into homemade crystalised ginger. :yum:
With luck I have also managed to grow Pink Lady apple seeds in my bottomless seed tubes after a weeks drying on the side board , then stratifying them in the fridge for a couple of months and a night in the freezer at minus 21 oC .
:idea: Either they are just poking their heads out or it's weeds . :roflanim:
I often grow strawberries in the greenhouse using the automatic irrigation system to water everything as the crop starts early and finished late .. at present because of Alison doing some bonsai work in the green house the four 20 litre tubs of home grown Cambridgeshire favourites grown from self harvested seeds were put outside with the sack barrow & there's plenty of berries on them .
I've also got some Kashmiri Cypress, Giant Redwoods & Larch seeds in the greenhouse ..the cypress have germinated well …. three out of four seeds .
I'm not sure how the rest are doing , come winter they will get put outside .
I started collecting the cones /seed two years ago when visiting Blarney castle , learnt how to get the seed ready for growing etc .
Next year I hope to have a greater tree seed crop collection that we have collected ourselves to grow our own bonsai trees from seed .
Slugs devoured a lot of stuff as it emerged in the beds , as it was too cold to use Nemaslug and I tried to be sparing with slug pellets as our dog is almost addicted to them to the extent of jumping 3 foot up on to the raised beds to find & eat them.
So I've used the glasshouse and the water misting set up to grow new peas, beans & lettuce quickly to replace what's been lost .
I've also grown tubes of different colours of long trailing lobelia & still have a dozen of so tubes of white that are not quite ready... so I can have red white and blue in our six hanging baskets to annoy my nationalist Welsh neighbours :roflanim:
I've also got beetroot & kohlrabi growing in tubes in the glasshouse due to the slug fest that been held in the garden , in a few days they should be OK to put out in the beds
Good news is our Nemaslug nemaodes arrived late this afternoon , just as we were about to go out . They will get placed tomorrow and then I'll do a second dose in six week time .
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Tomatoes in my big greenhouse (which isn't that big really) and cut and come again lettuce and cress in the small one.
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Thank you cloddopper, this contains just the sort of inspiration I need
Supermarket ginger in a 20 litre plant pot tub this time last year .
It grew to about three foot tall and had increased in size from 1& 1/2 inches with growing nodes to about five inches long and boy was it different to the half dried stuff you get in the shops . Turned three big pieces into homemade crystalised ginger. :yum:
Will definitely try that
With luck I have also managed to grow Pink Lady apple seeds in my bottomless seed tubes
what are your bottomless tubes made from?
I often grow strawberries in the greenhouse using the automatic irrigation system to water everything
What is the setup for your automatic irrigation system?
I've also got some Kashmiri Cypress, Giant Redwoods & Larch seeds in the greenhouse ..the cypress have germinated well
I like the idea of a greenhouse full of Giant Redwoods
So I've used the glasshouse and the water misting set up to grow new peas, beans & lettuce quickly to replace what's been lost
How does your water misting system work?
Sorry about all the questions but I like to make automatic systems!
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GribinIsaf, I have sent you a long PM .
The bottom less tubes are 3 mtr lengths of solvent weldable standard kitchen waste pipe cut on a simple jig with a 24 tpi back saw to 75 mm in length , smooth the cut edges with a good quality decorators sanding strip to remove all sharp edges ..if you have a lathe make up a jig and face off each end so every one is the same length then smooth the edges with a scraper before taking it off the lathe .
The plug for the bottom is made by filing the inside lip of one of the tubes and using a small triangular file make small teeth in the edge.
I used an old camping mat , used the toothed cutter to twist into the foam as hard as I could , then used a craft knife to fully cut the disc out the matting . Then used a pair of hole punch pliers to punch a 3 mm hole centrally for drainage .
I found a bit of garden fork shaft that just fitted the tube . Used it to push the discs to the bottom of each tube when they were stood upon the potting shed bench & lightly tamp the fill down with it . I also cut a bit at 75 mm long and screwed it to a small ply base so it stands up like a candle , so that when the sown seed has turned into a small individual pant big enough to handle I can press the tool into the garden where I want the plant to go to make a perfect hole .
Using the same tool push the foam disc up from the bottom of the tube to eject a healthy plug plant that fits nicely in the planting hole I've just made.
Slugs & snails don't seem as keen to eat a bigger healthy plant than they do for new emerging seedlings , it's one the main reason for me persisting with the bottomless tubes till I got it right . I also found that growing several hundred bedding plants each year it is was the best way for me as each tube takes very little compost and there is no knock back in growth when planting out .
The tubes are now in their seventh or eighth year so are the foam inserts . They all get washed in buckets of warm water fairy liquid wash & an egg cup of bleach sometime during winter so they are clean and reasonably sterile for the next sowing season . They also get rinsed off twicein clean rain water to remove any soap or bleach taint , then they are stored dry in clean seed trays till needed .
Every seed tube get it's own seed label with the date on it .. that way nothing gets mixed up ..well rarely ever . Sometime germinations can be spread over a week or more for seeds from the same packet . I can get 32 tube in a standard seed if I put a cut to six=ze bit of lino in the bottom to make it dead flat , I can get seven seed tube in a supermarket grape punnet which is handy for I sow things into run as succession crops and six sown cabbages / cauli etc. is plenty per fortnight
I've made a special cutter on my lathe that is a bit like a hole saw with a modification so it can be worked for my small bench press drill, as I ended up cutting out over 700 discs
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Pizza.
It's nice and warm in there of an evening, there aren't as many midgies and you can just reach out and grab our own salad leaves!
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Strawberries - just finished
Sweetcorn - coming along well
Carrots & beetroot & salad - ready for picking now
Melons - hardly grown for months and looking hopeless
Tomatos - first flowers just showing.
Cucumbers - plants are tiny but starting to flower
Courgettes - hope to get first fruit later this week
Onions - doing well
French beans - probably a month to go before we will see any beans.
Squash - plants looking healthy but smaller than I expected.
Grapes & nectarine & kiwi - only planted this year so don't expect anything for a few years.
Weeds - tremendous crop of most varieties
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I've run across this blog several times in the past, usually finding it while looking for pig information. But this subject pulled me in enough for me to actually register and post. I live in the States, in southern Illinois with "southern" being the operative word in regards to climate. I know Britain and parts of Europe have recently had a horrendous heat wave, so perhaps readers can relate that our summer temps are like that nearly every day with the added bonus of 40% + humidity. For some time I've been trialing different species in my greenhouse under these conditions. I have eight 5'x10' (12" tall) beds of heavily amended soil in a 48 x 24 double poly greenhouse with roll up sides. With the sides up, vents and doors open, the midday temp will still reach 110+ at chest height, but I can't afford to let prime growing space lay fallow for four or more months.
I have tried many of the plants previously mentioned. Most have not done well, though I've found a variety of cherry tomato (Punta Banda) that has withstood the test for many years, to the point that it has become something of a weed. Okra (all varieties) has done quite well until the aphids find it, then it becomes a matter of determination. Sweet potatoes (any variety, though I tend to go with bush just because of space limitations) dearly love the heat and humidity with the added bonus of being protected from the deer. Cowpeas (bush rather than pole) have done well, but there just really isn't enough room to make it meaningful. Yard long beans (red variety) didn't even slow down when the heat cranked up. Peanuts (several varieties) have also done well, though I put them in there not for their heat tolerance put for the loose soil of the raised beds.
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You got all that in your greenhouse Wullie? How big is it
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It's a polytunnel that's 7.5m x 12m.
We got it second hand off a neighbour who had a wee nursery business, it was 30m long when they had it but we decided that was a bit much so put the hoops closer together!
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I have tomatos, peas, salad stuff, strawberries, potatoes in tubs, chinese cabbage and some young flowers plants to grow on to plant out next Spring.
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I sometimes use a spray on white shade on the outside of my glasshouse to lower the temp when it gets really hot mid July usually . Then leave it on till mid October if the weather is hot .
Do any of you ploy tunnellers shade with fine knitted soft green netting drawn over th top and pegged down well , paint/ or spray your tunnels for the same reason ?.
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I selected an opaque cover for my polytunnel which reduces the dazzle of the sun slightly and no further shading is required.
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Whereabouts in Scotland are you Wullie?
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Whereabouts in Scotland are you Wullie?
Strathnairn (about 30 mins South West of Inverness).