Hi Chookie,
I have had a fantastic summer (Belgrave in the Dandenongs Victoria).
Built a 6.5 x 3 metre hot-house on new ground, conditioned the soil with
lime and gypsum to get the pH correct. Dug in cow poo, horse poo and pea
straw, leaving some pea straw on top for about 6 months. Planted tomatoes in
late September and was harvesting by Christmas. I trialled a grafted Apollo
from Bunnings. It has spread out to 4 branches, so far yielding more than 60
tomatoes averaging 300g each. The biggest so far was 600g!
The other tomatoes are producing well too. A mis-labelled beefsteak plant
turned out to be a cherry tomato. I have picked hundreds from it and it
still
has heaps! I use tomato growers' clips to suspend the vines from a rail.
Normal binders string breaks under the load. I use thetwine from the pea
straw bales now.
Every day I take a couple of tomatoes and a cucumber to work just to keep
up. (The ladies at work have asked if I'm trying to suggest something).
I take Zucchinis grown outside the hot-house too.
I've bottled heaps of tomato source and spaghetti source, using chopped up
zucchini in the spaghetti sauce.
The chillis have gone nuts! They love the hot-house. The capsicums are
incredible. It's the first time I've grown them. They are so much better
than
the weeks old garbage that Safeways sell.
The tomatoes I planted outside are just starting to go red now, but seem to
be suffering from some type of wilt. I think the hot-house protects the
plants inside from air-bourne nasties. The only downer is the broccoli, It
grew OK but I couldn't keep up with the white cabbage moth grubs. A leaf
would turn into lace over night.

I reckon the hot-house is the best thing. I've never had such a prolific
harvest before.
I hope that next year is as good.
Regards,
Ed.




"Chookie" wrote in message
...
I am unhappy wiht my tomato results. Hardly a tomato from any of my
plants.
The three that I have eaten so far were nice, but that's not much of a
crop
from 7 plants!

And my beans have all been strange. Usually you get a big flush of beans,
then more later on. I've only been getting one harvest per plant. Just
lack
of water, I think.

Did my autumn planting into punnets today...

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

"Parenthood is like the modern stone washing process for denim jeans. You
may
start out crisp, neat and tough, but you end up pale, limp and wrinkled."
Kerry Cue