Foinavon I have to brave the cold and plant my garlic crop...thing is we're slated for 6 inches of snow today and it's been coming down steadily since around 7am. I have to do it now or not at all so I'm gonna wait til it stops then clear the white stuff away then prepare the bed and plant it. It'll be worth the effort come July/August next yr

Evening all [ dixon of dock of the green styley for older viewers ]

good to see the thread pop up again

2 weeks hence here - garlic and broad beans in

last week  - carrot and celeriac up and in wheelbarrows, inside covered in soil, for winter use

chickens on salad patch to scrap and scrape over [not going well, too damp in hutch]

fleece over brassicas replaced with netting

swede looking poor - rest figures crossed


its a lark this vegetable growing !..

Have the same problem with the swede planted in July Delta. They have leaves but no stem swelling. Must remember to plant them earlier next year. Using the wheelbarrow to store root vegetables covered in soil is a good idea. I don't have room inside for mine but perhaps covering it with tarpaulin might work.
Our council have said they will charge £35 a year to collect household green waste next year for those who opt in. As I don't need this service because it's all composted on the allotment, It makes the annual rent seem very cheap.

Pics are up...only a few though...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/13783447@N03/sets/72157638060806396/

Glad you like Mr Toes. I just got finished and it started snowing again so glad I went out when I did. I planted 125 plants which hopefully will fare better than some of last years crop. Not sure if it was too wet or what but i had two varieties growing and the other variety were all but wiped out due to rot. Fingers crossed.

It looks very wintry Petrus, even the ground looks frozen on top. I like your template for spacing the holes. Some types of garlic over-winter better than others. There are "hard neck" and "soft neck" varieties but can't remember which are better. I've been growing from the same stock for about a decade now and never had any problems.

Foinavan - Re Broad Beans, when did you plant your Dreadnoughts?. I know you are a deal further north than me but be grateful for the advice.

I did Aquadulce in the Autumn and then Stereo in the Spring. The latter were good but not brilliant; The Aquadulce got Choc Spot and suffered very badly (much worse than the close but not adjacent Stereo) with the dreaded blackfly.

French Beans - For anyone who hasn't grown them, for a very long picking season, good flavour and without stringing or glut, I would recommend Climbing Blue Lake.

blackbarn, have you heard about pinching the tops out to deter the black fly...?

Blackbarn,
According to Stephen Fry in QI, spring moves north at 1/3 mph (or 8 miles a day). By that reckoning, in Sussex you will be two to three weeks ahead of me.

For anyone remotely interested, I've taken a few photos of my plot during the last week.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/99177995@N03/sets/72157638215758213/

The garlic was planted in September, is well rooted and will be able to take advantage of warm spring weather. it should produce fresh green garlic in May and mature bulbs in June.
The cabbage is protected from northerly and easterly winds by recycled plastic sheeting and will be given a top sheet to keep the snow off later.
Swede haven't developed but have been protected by a makeshift cloche more in hope than expectation.
The over-all view shows the beds which have been manured in preparation for winter and a temporary plastic walkway now that the ground has become muddy.

Thanks Delta. Hoping to bring on the cabbage early when there's nothing much else to eat in the garden.
Had to net them to keep off the pigeons.

Visited the allotment for the first time since before Christmas and was relieved that nothing had been blown away or damaged during the stormy weather.

Put a black plastic composter over a rhubarb crown to force some sticks for next month.
If you have rhubarb this is well worth doing, as forced stems are sweet and mild, a real treat as we come out of winter.
Don't do this to your best plant though, or if you only have one plant, as it exhausts the root which may not recover.

I see the heading to this thread is 2013, do we continue with this or start a new one?

new one !


Foinavon gets the deciding vote...

Keep it imo, or I'd be forever trying to find this thread to recover what was discussed month-by-month.

Finished the last of the bonanza crop of apples at the weekend. Still a couple of unimpressive but tasty swedes left in the ground. Will eat them raw in salads this week, then turn all the soil over and remove the weeds which have been enjoying the lack of frosts. Frosts in Feb and March can then get to work breaking up the soil.

Have pruned eight of my pepper plants and parked them in the spare bedroom (picked the last fruit last week). Water sparingly and they should be good to wake up and produce early when they get sent back out to the greenhouse, probably in late spring.

Where do you live? -  makes a difference.....

Corno di torro peppers, delta. Somewhere back in the thread I explained how I've been selecting seeds from fatter, less pointed fruit to improve the produce, but I also keep some plants over winter to get an early crop. They don't all survive - like anything, they die at some point - but by pruning them down until there are just V-shapes of an inch or two in their branches and only very occasional watering, I can get them to hibernate during the winter when the sun is too low in the sky at our latitude for them to thrive.

This picture is from autumn 2012. The plant has been pruned, with just foliage left to support the sole remaining fruit:
[   This image is no longer available.   ]

I'll post some pictures of this years hibernating plants, once they get approved.

I'm lucky enough to live a couple of miles west of Taunton, in balmy Somerset, but that doesn't really make a difference if you bring them into the house.

Result of the poll

4 votes to 1 in favour of keeping this thread.

I take my hat off to you Screaming, I've wasted many hours and packets of seed trying to grow peppers without success. A greenhouse or mild climate must be the answer.

Posted this back on page 2 of this thread (23 March):


Delta: I grow corno di toro peppers in the greenhouse (unheated - can't see the point when you're already paying to heat your home - simply keep your plants indoors until the warm weather arrives).

They're very sweet peppers - delicious raw, but shaped like long chilli peppers, which is a bit inefficient. (The name means "horn of bull".) So each year I save the seeds from the first pepper which appears with a fairly rounded rather than pointed end and use those for the next year. Gradually I'm getting a larger, more bulbous, and earlier, pepper crop each year.

Sowed this year's crop in half a dozen old cream cartons filled with 2/3 John Innes seed compost and 1/3 perlite. I like perlite, as it seems both to absorb excess watering and release it when you forget to water. Covered with a plastic carrier bag and 2 sheets of newspaper on top. Left them near the woodburner, watering daily from a spray bottle.

Now got 11 plants growing uncovered on a south-facing windowsill. Move them back near the woodburner at nights, watered twice a day.

Will transfer them to 9" pots in the greenhouse when the days start getting to 15C and frosts disappear from the forecasts.

I selected corno di toro on the scientific basis that they were the first pepper seeds I spotted on sale in Wilkinson's, and the dog was tied up outside, so I didn't want to waste time reading packets etc.

When they're in the bigger pots in the greenhouse, I use a mixture of 2/3 decent multi-purpose compost and 1/3 perlite or vermiculite. As I had more seedlings than compost last year, and couldn't be bothered carrying another bag home, I transferred a couple of late seedlings into pots filled with 2/3 salvaged compost from the previous year's tomatoes, mixed with 1/3 perlite. They grew and produced just as well.

As soon as the first flowers have set into mini-fruits, I feed the plants with a half-strength tomato feed once a week (err on the side of dilution). They're watered well with rainwater each morning and well mulched with grass clippings. By watering through the grass clippings and keeping them topped up, I find the plants are adequately fed as they go through the growing stage.

Here's a picture of your standard corno di toro for comparison, so you can see how I've subtly altered the shape:

[   This image is no longer available.   ]

Here's a couple of photos of the this winter's plants in hibernation:

[   This image is no longer available.   ][   This image is no longer available.   ]

I hope that makes the pruning regime clear. I don't know how many years they can live for, as I've never kept track of each plant's history. But, as I said, a good number of them do survive and produce well and early in their next year. I have high hopes for this year, as all 8 still look very green and healthy.

I don't really know what the secret is with peppers. The bird I used to live with succeeded with everything she planted, except peppers, which is why I chose to have a go myself when we split up, on the basis I wouldn't suffer by comparison if they didn't produce. She had the benefit of a big, well-sited greenhouse, and peppers didn't like it, yet top PROPUNTER Eddie Fremantle's girlfriend had simply crammed peppers and tomatoes onto every available windowsill in their pad in Putney last summer, and they were all producing fruit for fun.

top stuff screaming, them pics.

thanks for re posting that earlier post...


I'll give it a whirl next year!

+



Overwintering Peppers
    Overwintering Peppers - How to Successfully Overwinter Hot Pepper Plants!    
    Most people are not aware that peppers are actually perennials! The reason they are usually grown as annuals is because the winter temperatures in most places will kill them. They are semi-tropical plants, and just cannot handle cold weather. However, it is possible to keep a pepper plant alive for several years, via a technique known as "overwintering".

Overwintering is a method of providing a pepper with the proper growing conditions to keep it alive and thriving during the cold winter months.

What are the benefits of overwintering? It can allow you to...

    Amaze your friends by enjoying fresh home-grown peppers in the middle of winter!
    Use a colorful pepper plant as a holiday decoration!
    Grow a much larger pepper plant than would be possible in just one year
    Get a hugh crop of peppers from a second-year plant
    Get a head start on next season
    Get a crop in early spring, while your friends are still trying to get their seedlings going!
    Grow a very long-season pepper (like some of the South American varieties)
    Grow a rare or favorite pepper plant for several years

   
    How To Overwinter Peppers:    
    So, how exactly can you do this?

One thing that a pepper plant needs to survive during the winter is warmth, so the first thing that you need to do is to move your pepper plant someplace out of the cold, such as indoors to a sunroom or conservatory, kitchen, living room, etc., or somewhere else that is warm and protected from the cold winter temperatures. The general rule of thumb is, if the temperature is comfortable for you, it should be comfortable for your pepper plants as well.

Next, a pepper plant needs sunlight, so be sure that you located it somewhere where it can get some sunlight, such as near a sunny window.

Lastly, a pepper plant needs water and fertilizer, so make sure that you water and fertilize your plant regularly (see the tips section below for more specifics on fertilizing).
   
    Some Peppers Are Easier    
    In experimenting with overwintering, you will quickly discover that some pepper varieties are much easier to overwinter than others. We have observed three different ways that peppers can respond to being overwintered -

    Some pepper varieties, such as Habaneros, can not only be overwintered successfully, they may continue to produce new peppers for you all during the winter months!

    Other peppers, such as Cayenne Pepper, can be overwintered easily, but may react to the change in season by going into a semi-dormant state - looking much like a healthy houseplant, but not producing any flowers or peppers over the winter. Once spring hits, you can suddenly see a burst of new growth, flowers and peppers as the pepper plant "wakes up" from it's hibernation!

    Some pepper varieties, such as Jalapenos, just don't seem to like the winter, and can be more difficult to overwinter successfully. You shouldn't get discouraged if some of your peppers don't do well on your first attempt, some are just harder than others.

   
    TIPS:    
    Following are special growing tips for overwintering peppers:

    Start any peppers that you might want to overwinter in containers. While it is possible to dig-up a pepper plant from the garden and re-plant it into a container, you are likely to cause at least some damage to the plant's roots in the process. By growing your pepper plants in containers, it will make it a lot easier to overwinter them later!

    While some people prefer fancy (and expensive) grow lights for overwintering, we have noticed that light from a sunny window typically provides enough sunlight for peppers over the winter. An East-facing window seems to do the best.

    Don't place your pepper plants directly in the windowsill if the glass gets very cold, in order to keep from freezing the plants out, but instead put them near the window where they can catch the incoming sunlight.

    If you have to use artificial light (such as in a heated basement), use either grow lights or fluorescent lights. Light bulbs (incandescent lights) do not provide the proper kind of light spectrum for pepper plants, and can burn them.

    If some of the plant's leaves start turning yellow or falling off after it is moved, this is a normal reaction to the reduced sunlight and change of season. The plant should perk up once it gets used to it's new growing environment.

Finally, a secret tip just for our readers...

For peppers, you normally want to use a fertilizer that is higher in Phosphorus than Nitrogen (i.e. - the second # is higher than the first). The reason for this is that too much Nitrogen can result in a pepper plant that is very green and bushy, but with very few peppers!

However, we have discovered that by reversing this approach and feeding a pepper during the winter with a fertilizer that has as much or more Nitrogen (i.e. - with the first # the same or a bit higher than the second), rather than just surviving the winter, you can actually encourage the plant to go into a "vegetative growth" state over the winter months, producing new stems, more leaves, and a much larger pepper plant! Then, when spring hits, you can switch back, and your larger, leafier plant will now be able to produce many more peppers!

We tried-out this approach one winter with some Orange Habaneros, using a liquid fertilizer with a little more Nitrogen than Phosphorus (which also allowed our plants to continue to provide us with habaneros over Christmas) and the results were fantastic!

Overwintering can be challenging at times, but the results are well worth the efforts! If you have any overwintering stories of your own, let us know.

I use this company a lot http://www.victoriananursery.co.uk/ not the cheapest, but they have some nice heritage varieties