Because of the programme 'Food Unwrapped' in the section about watercress, when the woman was going around an outside market asking people to place cards where they thought the fruit and veg with the most Vit C, iron and calcium were - and the correct answer to Vit C was red peppers and not citrus fruit, as everyone there (plus myself) thought would be the right answer, it led me to read up online about peppers and their nutritional value as I've been eating loads of them, in all colours, this year in stir-fry meals.

I couldn't believe how brilliant they are nutritionally!

One of the best foods you can eat - and they, like tomatoes (which I did know about), are considered a fruit and not a vegetable.

As I said, we live and learn don't we?
Which is great - but there really is a trick being missed by all the farmers and food producers in this country by not pointing out the immense benefits fruit and veg give you.

We all know that they are 'good for you' - but how fantastic they can be for a person is very much a light hidden under a bushel.

breadnbutter,
I've never tried growing pumpkins undercover. Without artificial heat April/early May will probably be too cold for them even undercover. Sub-tropical plants like these need continuous growth and they are unlikely to recover from any setbacks caused by low temperatures.
Here in Birmingham I start them in a heated propagator early May and keep them in a cold frame until ready to plant out first or second week of June when all danger of frost has passed. The first flowers appear in July and at this time of year, late August, the fruits are large but soft and unripe. They need about another 6 weeks to ripen and mature and are left out as long as possible, keeping an eye on the forecast for the appearance of night frosts which will kill the plants.
Because of your shorter frost free period it's unlikely you can grow them outside successfully unless undercover when they should do well. (They need about 100 frost free days and nights to set fruit and ripen them).
I would suggest you follow my germination and planting out time table and grow them under plastic.Make sure they are kept well watered and ventilated. they are greedy feeders and I find chicken manure pellets work well.
I wish you success with them as they are tremendously satisfying to grow.

breadnbutter


Cara does the job for us bakers wise!

Thanks The leaves are solar panels making sugars for the pumpkins.
There are 24 plants so hoping for at least as many fruit. Will send you a pic at harvest time.
The bushes at the back are red, white and black currants. there are also some raspberry canes which need staking. The large tree is a damson which is shared by the 4 adjoining plots. I've made all the jam I need and there are plenty left over on the tree and covering the ground.
The rest of my plot is to the right of the camera and there are a couple of dwarf trees behind also out of shot.

I'll leave Delta to talk about spuds.

Harvested the last of the winter squash (pumpkins) and shelling beans on Friday as night frosts are forecast.

It's the end of the gardening year and the start of preparations for the new one.

Photo for BreadnButter pending approval will be attached later.

Pleased you got some decent results Ovalman. It's always a challenge when you haven't much space to play around with. Home grown strawberries are always worthwhile, thinking of expanding my crop too for next year. Have masses of raspberries this season (autumn gold) and am making loads of jam for want of something better to do with them.

The pumpkin photo is still awaiting approval. Either the moderators have gone on holiday or they noticed the naked woman in the background.

explain over wintering Peppers and Chillies someone please ...

I've always grown them [g/house] then chuck the plant at the season end

tar

Thanks Ovalman. They are easy to grow (see 29 Aug 14 21:05 post) they need a sunny spot and can be grown up supports. The named varieties are firm and sweet with similar flavour and texture to butternut squash.

* so

Debatable whether it's worth it, Delta.

I've grown corno di toro peppers in an unheated greenhouse for several years now. Each autumn I prune the plants back and bring them indoors and keep the soil just damp enough to keep the stems green and the plants alive. The idea is to rest the plant so that it resumes youthful growth when conditions are suitable. (They definitely do not survive a UK winter in an unheated greenhouse, even in balmy Somerset; I've tried a few just to confirm that.)

About February time I'm feeling quite pleased with myself, as nearly all are looking green and healthy, but then one by one most go brown and die, perhaps simply owing to old age, or perhaps because of the cumulative effects of months of low-angle sunlight during a non-tropical winter. But about one in five does survive, with a tiny shoot appearing which grows into a whole new plant from the original stem once it becomes warm enough to send it out into the light of the greenhouse again.

But the reason I question whether it's worth it is because in my experience the over-wintered plant does not flower significantly earlier than newly grown seedlings, and they do take up a hell of a lot of room indoors over the winter.

If I'd made a better choice of woman to live with a few years ago and still owned a large house as a consequence, I'd just stick them in a spare room, water them occasionally and not care that 80% of them never make it to the spring. But having limited space filled with 4'-high stalks in 8" pots for half the year gets a bit annoying.

If you'd like to give it a go, you're looking at something like this:[   This image is no longer available.   ]

This is from last year. I'd pruned the branches back to V-shapes an inch or two long, apart from the ones where fruits were still growing. Once those were were harvested, everything was cut back to V-shaped branches.

This year, however, all my peppers are still in the (unheated) greenhouse producing fruit. I've had to remove plenty of flowering branches, because there's not enough hours of sunlight at this stage to power everything that's still budding. But for now I don't need to make a decision on whether to bother to prune properly and bring indoors for the winter.

cheers screaming - I wont bother then if the unheated g/house bit dont work  ..