Hi,

I've been trying to search around on google to find any information on
how other peoples crops in the uk (I'm the east to be more specific)
have done this year. My first year of growing marrow has been great
they obviously seam to do great even at temperatures bellow 20C. My
problem has been with my tomatoes and peppers, I know they both fully
into two different speed growing catagories with the peppers going to
take longer to get a crop. The thing is though on my tomatoes I have
quite a few Trusses, although I only pinched out the growing tip only
a week ago after I decided to give up on getting any more than 3-4
trusses. My tomatoes just seam to be growing very slowly, I have them
outside and not in any poly tunnel or greenhouse, but they just
haven't produced this year, I'm usually not so good at getting my
plants out very early (around mid june), but I usually would have
gotten some tomatoes at least by now. I'm blaming the cold rainy
summer we have had this year. Although its actually quite nice today,
about 25C in the sun. Rant over, How has everybody else's Tomatoes
done?

On Tue, 31 Aug 2010 05:41:07 -0700 (PDT), furlow
wrote:

Hi,

I've been trying to search around on google to find any information on
how other peoples crops in the uk (I'm the east to be more specific)
have done this year. My first year of growing marrow has been great
they obviously seam to do great even at temperatures bellow 20C. My
problem has been with my tomatoes and peppers, I know they both fully
into two different speed growing catagories with the peppers going to
take longer to get a crop. The thing is though on my tomatoes I have
quite a few Trusses, although I only pinched out the growing tip only
a week ago after I decided to give up on getting any more than 3-4
trusses. My tomatoes just seam to be growing very slowly, I have them
outside and not in any poly tunnel or greenhouse, but they just
haven't produced this year, I'm usually not so good at getting my
plants out very early (around mid june), but I usually would have
gotten some tomatoes at least by now. I'm blaming the cold rainy
summer we have had this year. Although its actually quite nice today,
about 25C in the sun. Rant over, How has everybody else's Tomatoes
done?

Half of my greenhouse toms are on their 9th truss and growing out
through the top windows. I did remove sideshoots regularly but let
half of the plants carry on un-topped.
They are in greenhouse soil borders, fed regularly with alternating
tomorite and Miracle Grow. I water the soil copiously every second
day.

Cropping has been, and is, excellent, with many more pounds yet to
come.


--
(¯`·. ®óñ© © ²°¹° .·´¯)

On Tue, 31 Aug 2010 05:41:07 -0700 (PDT), furlow
wrote:

Hi,

I've been trying to search around on google to find any information on
how other peoples crops in the uk (I'm the east to be more specific)
have done this year. My first year of growing marrow has been great
they obviously seam to do great even at temperatures bellow 20C. My
problem has been with my tomatoes and peppers, I know they both fully
into two different speed growing catagories with the peppers going to
take longer to get a crop. The thing is though on my tomatoes I have
quite a few Trusses, although I only pinched out the growing tip only
a week ago after I decided to give up on getting any more than 3-4
trusses. My tomatoes just seam to be growing very slowly, I have them
outside and not in any poly tunnel or greenhouse, but they just
haven't produced this year, I'm usually not so good at getting my
plants out very early (around mid june), but I usually would have
gotten some tomatoes at least by now. I'm blaming the cold rainy
summer we have had this year. Although its actually quite nice today,
about 25C in the sun. Rant over, How has everybody else's Tomatoes
done?


greenhouse tomatoes are rubbish this year.
A pound or two off them so far.
Green peppers look not much bigger than match heads and aubergine are
just flowers I think.


--
http://www.bra-and-pants.com
http://www.holidayunder100.co.uk

On 31/08/2010 14:00, ®óñ© © ²°¹° wrote:
On Tue, 31 Aug 2010 05:41:07 -0700 (PDT), furlow
wrote:

Hi,

I've been trying to search around on google to find any information on
how other peoples crops in the uk (I'm the east to be more specific)
have done this year. My first year of growing marrow has been great
they obviously seam to do great even at temperatures bellow 20C. My
problem has been with my tomatoes and peppers, I know they both fully
into two different speed growing catagories with the peppers going to
take longer to get a crop. The thing is though on my tomatoes I have
quite a few Trusses, although I only pinched out the growing tip only
a week ago after I decided to give up on getting any more than 3-4
trusses. My tomatoes just seam to be growing very slowly, I have them
outside and not in any poly tunnel or greenhouse, but they just
haven't produced this year, I'm usually not so good at getting my
plants out very early (around mid june), but I usually would have
gotten some tomatoes at least by now. I'm blaming the cold rainy
summer we have had this year. Although its actually quite nice today,
about 25C in the sun. Rant over, How has everybody else's Tomatoes
done?

Half of my greenhouse toms are on their 9th truss and growing out
through the top windows. I did remove sideshoots regularly but let
half of the plants carry on un-topped.
They are in greenhouse soil borders, fed regularly with alternating
tomorite and Miracle Grow. I water the soil copiously every second
day.

Cropping has been, and is, excellent, with many more pounds yet to
come.


I grow and have for a number of years, tumbling toms, this has been
their best year by far. Whereas my courgettes which normally crop in
abundance have been sparse. My onions have also cropped poorly, it never
is a good year for everything, that, I guess, is natures way.

--
Residing on low ground in North Staffordshire

On Tue, 31 Aug 2010 14:23:53 +0100, Moonraker
wrote:

I grow and have for a number of years, tumbling toms, this has been
their best year by far. Whereas my courgettes which normally crop in
abundance have been sparse

I know a few people growing courgettes in their garden or allotment.

Their crops have been huge. Some of the courgettes are up to 20"
long and good quality. Similarly with marrows.

I grow about 9 varieties of greenhouse tomato from seed.
I gave a neighbour some Country Taste F1 hybrid plants and he keeps
bringing some of his fruit to show me. Some over 2lbs, and one of
over 2.5lbs.



--
(¯`·. ®óñ© © ²°¹° .·´¯)

"furlow" wrote
I've been trying to search around on google to find any information on
how other peoples crops in the uk (I'm the east to be more specific)
have done this year. My first year of growing marrow has been great
they obviously seam to do great even at temperatures bellow 20C. My
problem has been with my tomatoes and peppers, I know they both fully
into two different speed growing catagories with the peppers going to
take longer to get a crop. The thing is though on my tomatoes I have
quite a few Trusses, although I only pinched out the growing tip only
a week ago after I decided to give up on getting any more than 3-4
trusses. My tomatoes just seam to be growing very slowly, I have them
outside and not in any poly tunnel or greenhouse, but they just
haven't produced this year, I'm usually not so good at getting my
plants out very early (around mid june), but I usually would have
gotten some tomatoes at least by now. I'm blaming the cold rainy
summer we have had this year. Although its actually quite nice today,
about 25C in the sun. Rant over, How has everybody else's Tomatoes
done?

Excellent. Planted out the first week in June onto our allotment, lots of
seaweed extract as feed in the copious watering needed here due to the
exceptionally dry summer (until the kids broke up!) then after the first
fruit set tomato feed was used. As usual it's Ferline and Fantasio (large
toms but not beefsteak) that have done excellently with this years other
variety Harbinger also cropping well.
We don't grow peppers out on the plot, never been able to get a worthwhile
crop, but we do grow chillies and this year looks like an exceptional year
for them, if they would just go red. Thai Dragon (V hot), Inferno (mild but
tasty), Punjabi (hot). Looks like our Asian neighbours will get lots for
their freezers after we take what we want for ours.

--
Regards
Bob Hobden
W.of London. UK

"furlow" wrote in message
...
Hi,

I've been trying to search around on google to find any information on
how other peoples crops in the uk (I'm the east to be more specific)
have done this year. My first year of growing marrow has been great
they obviously seam to do great even at temperatures bellow 20C. My
problem has been with my tomatoes and peppers, I know they both fully
into two different speed growing catagories with the peppers going to
take longer to get a crop. The thing is though on my tomatoes I have
quite a few Trusses, although I only pinched out the growing tip only
a week ago after I decided to give up on getting any more than 3-4
trusses. My tomatoes just seam to be growing very slowly, I have them
outside and not in any poly tunnel or greenhouse, but they just
haven't produced this year, I'm usually not so good at getting my
plants out very early (around mid june), but I usually would have
gotten some tomatoes at least by now. I'm blaming the cold rainy
summer we have had this year. Although its actually quite nice today,
about 25C in the sun. Rant over, How has everybody else's Tomatoes
done?


My vegetables have been very bad this year, due I think to the lack of rain,
I've had no peas, carrots, runner beans and many others, the only things
which did grow, but not as much as I expected, were tomatoes in the green
house.

Overall it's been a terrible year for veg.

Alan

On 31 Aug, 13:41, furlow wrote:
Hi,

I've been trying to search around on google to find any information on
how other peoples crops in the uk (I'm the east to be more specific)
have done this year. My first year of growing marrow has been great
they obviously seam to do great even at temperatures bellow 20C. My
problem has been with my tomatoes and peppers, I know they both fully
into two different speed growing catagories with the peppers going to
take longer to get a crop. The thing is though on my tomatoes I have
quite a few Trusses, although I only pinched out the growing tip only
a week ago after I decided to give up on getting any more than 3-4
trusses. My tomatoes just seam to be growing very slowly, I have them
outside and not in any poly tunnel or greenhouse, but they just
haven't produced this year, I'm usually not so good at getting my
plants out very early (around mid june), but I usually would have
gotten some tomatoes at least by now. I'm blaming the cold rainy
summer we have had this year. Although its actually quite nice today,
about 25C in the sun. Rant over, How has everybody else's Tomatoes
done?

An average year in the garden, stuff is a bit late as I planted late,
we had late frosts here. (Herefordshire) We had a dry spell but I
have no water meter. Greenhouse tomatos good. Melons good. Peppers
poor, aubergines failure.
Celery poor but my fault. Carrots good. beetroot good, potatos poor.
Beans excellent. Sweetcorn good but buggered up by my enemy, the mole.
Pumpkin, well early days yet. Apples,pears, peaches looking good.
Plums average. Damsons poor.
Apricots walnuts mulberry failed.

In message , alan.holmes
writes

My vegetables have been very bad this year, due I think to the lack of rain,
I've had no peas, carrots, runner beans and many others, the only things
which did grow, but not as much as I expected, were tomatoes in the green
house.

Overall it's been a terrible year for veg.

Alan

Glad I didn't bother then. :-) My chantenay carrots were good,
but grown in containers which meant regular watering.
--
Gordon H
Remove "invalid" to reply

Soft fruit good, and very lush with all the rain we've had. Apples look good, but still on trees, so I don't know how many we have.

Complete broad bean failure.

Of the greenhouse crops: tomatoes cropping well, but late, and about 2 weeks ago as the weather turned colder they simply stopped ripening, both mine and my neighbour's. Aubergines very late and I don't think I'll get any. Sweet and chili peppers have good crops, but again a reluctance to ripen, fortunately doesn't matter too much. And cucumbers are good.

I don't have a greenhouse, but I usually have good success growing peppers (mainly chilli but also sweet) in pots outside against a sunny wall. This year I had a superfluity of seedlings, so i also tried some in the ground. The ones in pots have been brilliant, the ones in the ground terrible. Even though the ground was warmed up with a black sheeting prior to planting. I think it just isn't warm enough in the ground for them. We have also had some good tomatoes off plants in pots too.

I think the trick in many of these cases is the correct varieties. I chose a specific variety of sweet pepper for pot cultivation, and compact chilli varieties that suit pot cultivation, and also ones that are not late ripening - people have a lot of trouble getting late ripeners like habaneros and rocotos to ripen in this country, even with everything else. And starting soon enough. I got my pepper seeds in a propagator to germinate about 1 March.
We were lucky that the conditions for putting the pepper plants out at the end of May were perfect this year, last year they got whipped by strong winds and cold temperatures, which set them back, and my chillis were poor last year.

You can growing tomatoes fine in the ground if you choosing suitable varieties. For example, look for one called urbikany, its very early and used to cool weather. I had no trouble with it in the ground even in last year's terrible summer.

Choosing special varieties you will have to grow from seed. Tomatoes germinate very easily (in a heated propagator), you start them a bit later, about 6 weeks before putting them outside. Peppers and chillis are trickier. In either case, it is essential to use a fungicide, as the seedlings are very prone to damping off. This is actually the first year I got a sweet pepper to germinate. But when it did, it was off faster than the chillis and I already had some fruit set on it before I put them outside in late May. Though the fruit take a lot longer to develop and ripen than most chillis I've had.

haven't had damping off problems with either chilli or sweet pepper, even though I don't use a fungicide. Chillis seem to germinate very readily. Sweet peppers aren't quite so enthusiastic.

Apples pears plums and damsons have been and still are good, toms very late
in getting started but going well at the moment altho there are not so many.
Shrubs trees etc all good but the best of all are the Sweet Peas, picking
almost every day and the smell is brilly. My daughter gave me the seeds but
cannot remember if they had a name or type or even where she bought them, I
hope that she can remember cos I want some more for next year. The smell is
amazing the colour is deep purply red, small flower on a fairly short stem.
They came in a brown paper seed packet with a cartoony sketch of a jolly
gardener on the front, does it ring any bells anyone ? Just remembered lots
of berries on the holly no doubt it will all be gone by Christmas :-)

kate

On Thu, 2 Sep 2010 09:48:18 +0100, "Kate Morgan"
wrote:

Apples pears plums and damsons have been and still are good, toms very late
in getting started but going well at the moment altho there are not so many.
Shrubs trees etc all good but the best of all are the Sweet Peas, picking
almost every day and the smell is brilly. My daughter gave me the seeds but
cannot remember if they had a name or type or even where she bought them, I
hope that she can remember cos I want some more for next year. The smell is
amazing the colour is deep purply red, small flower on a fairly short stem.
They came in a brown paper seed packet with a cartoony sketch of a jolly
gardener on the front, does it ring any bells anyone ?


Possibly Heritage and Heirloom seeds?


--
(¯`·. ®óñ© © ²°¹° .·´¯)

In message , ®óñ© © ²°¹°
writes
On Thu, 2 Sep 2010 09:48:18 +0100, "Kate Morgan"
wrote:

Apples pears plums and damsons have been and still are good, toms very late
in getting started but going well at the moment altho there are not so many.
Shrubs trees etc all good but the best of all are the Sweet Peas, picking
almost every day and the smell is brilly. My daughter gave me the seeds but
cannot remember if they had a name or type or even where she bought them, I
hope that she can remember cos I want some more for next year. The smell is
amazing the colour is deep purply red, small flower on a fairly short stem.
They came in a brown paper seed packet with a cartoony sketch of a jolly
gardener on the front, does it ring any bells anyone ?


Possibly Heritage and Heirloom seeds?


Sounds like they could have come from Pennard Plants in East Pennard,
Somerset. They specialise in this type of thing and who packet their
seeds as you describe. After they spoke to our local garden club in N.
Dorset in spring, I bought a few packets of heirloom veg seeds (all did
well) as well as sweet pea seeds. They were/are superb and the fragrance
is delicious. My problem is I can't recall which ones I bought but I
suspect they will know when I chat with them.

You may find the link helpful:

http://www.pennardplants.com/categories.php?cat=197

Note: if you go through the home page of the site, follow this route:
All Categories/Heritage Seed Collection (Vegetable &
Flowers/Flowers-Sweet Peas. After that you have the choice of Heritage
Grandiflora or Spencer Sweet Peas ... both have a number of types and
all are fragrant.

Hope this helps.
--
Gopher .... I know my place!