The Perils of "Peat Free"

The sickly crew

Much as I hate reporting failures, I feel obliged to record the abysmal failure of  my tomatoes and cucumbers this year.  Yellow, at best, to purple leaves,  lack of growth, prone to attack by pests or simply rotting: it has been an abject failure.  I tried several new tomato varieties, but also my failsafe Sungold, so I know it is not my growing methods.    The culprit has to be the peat free compost.  New Horizon Vegetable Compost by the normally reliable Westland.  I had noted that New Horizon "All Plant Compost" claims to have "No Green Waste" but on closer examination the Vegetable Compost misses this phrase out from the blurb.  It does claim to be suitable for growing tomatoes.  Both products have a real stink about them even before you break open the bag, reminiscent of pig slurry.  I now have a dilemma: Do I try to isolate and dispose of these products or let the contaminants dissipate/dilute on the allotment, once in contact with real soil?  It may be only by association but I went down with food poisoning for two weeks after working with this material intensively.  In the small print they do advise you to wear gloves when handling - advice I now take very seriously! 

Cucumber - giving up the ghost (There were 3)

Sungold - Single fruit on a spindly plant.

 

Here Come the Cucurbits

 

Another rainy day dissuades me from visiting the allotment.  Instead I am tending to the plants at home waiting for their invasion of the allotment.  OK these courgettes, squashes, pumpkins and cucumbers don't look quite so alien when they are in the greenhouse under natural light.

There are plenty seedlings awaiting improved weather.  You might spot the tomatoes which are having a temporary excursion out of the greenhouse, and there are runner beans and peas too.  I have plenty of spare alliums and a whole host of lobelia just needing to be found a final spot.

Also there are some later brassica seedlings.  More than enough to fill the garden, allotment and school garden!

It is a relief to get to the direct sowing.  Soon I will have to reconfigure the greenhouse for the tomatoes and cucumbers.

Welcome to the House of Fun

A peek inside my greenhouse on a sunny afternoon. 

 Flowers on one side

Tomatoes and chillies on the other

Chilli

Tomato

All the alliums and other hardy veg has been moved to the path outdoors.  And here is an unheated propagator with spring salads that  gets the lid popped back on at night.

Everything is labelled

Up above I am delighted with the progress of my basil seedlings!

Living in Scotland I might be a bit rash growing frost sensitive plants so early in the year.  The other side of the coin is that the short growing season means you have to make an early start to stand a chance of a harvest.  It looks like this year I have got away with it.  Tonight the temperature is set to drop to one or two degrees and I will be dragging everything I can fit into the greenhouse, shed and coal cellar for the last time.  (The greenhouse gets the benefit of a paraffin heater if  there is a threat of frost.) After that the minimum night temperature is set to be no lower than 4 degrees C until the end of the month.  I will, of course be checking the forecasters  don't change their prediction, but it looks like everything will left in the same place day and night hereafter. Just as well as there are more seedlings indoors under lights waiting to be pricked out.

Cucumbers at the back

Less worry - more fun.

Meet the Gang

Here's the motley crew that are just waiting to be set out in the greenhouse.  They are in the green room (shed) while the greenhouse is set up for the summer season:

Much less cluttered now that the seedlings have been evicted:

We have had so much rain in the last week that watering has not been an issue even for new sowings and plantings at the allotment (of which more to follow).  It is warm enough for even tender plants to survive outdoors so I have been moving everything along apace.

For The Record - New Potatoes and Greenhouse Update

The all time record temperature for Edinburgh is 30C. Well we are pushing that today.  But the real record is the earliness of some of the crops.

25th June is about the earliest I have ever had new potatoes.  These Ballydoon were grown in sacks in  our back garden.

The spuds are not the only competitor for the earliest ever award. These Mini cucumbers are full size (for them) and it looks like there are plenty more to come.

I did buy these in as baby plants, but the tomatoes are all grown from seed:

The only greenhouse disappointment has been the Chillies which should be happy as Larry but are not.  Possibly cold nights are a factor, possibly low light (the greenhouse is overshadowed by a hedge, but I am at a loss to understand why they are not growing away and loosing leaves instead! Suggestions welcome.

Moving On Up

The greenhouse has been reorganised to accommodate tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers 

The tomatoes are looking a bit anaemic, but hopefully the transplant to growbags will pep them up.

My Currant Obsession

It's raining today, after a long dry September. One result of the extended Summer has been that outdoor tomatoes have pretty much ripened on the vine. Last week I harvested these Goldrush Currant Tomatoes grown from seed: 

Something else I harvested was this Shark's Fin Melon:

It weighed in at 7kg or one stone in old money.

Much much smaller but still gratifying was this mini cucumber, one of a half dozen grown in a grow bag outdoors.

To see these exotics do so well outdoor in Scotland makes me realise how lucky we have been this year.  There were two cold weeks in August but September just went on and on. The nights have started getting cold, but the cold driving westerly winds we normally get in September have yet to arrive. The runner beans are still going fitfully as a result. The French beans are more confused having stopped they are now producing new flowers and curly fruit!  Very coquettish.

Rain permitting I'll be harvesting the melons, carrots, and the rest of the potatoes this weekend. I regret not harvesting the drying beans (Canadian Wonder) before the onset of rain. C'est la vie!

Traffic Light Gardening

STOP

Red

GET SET

Amber

GO!

Green

The red onions were from sets last autumn. I've now gathered all the autumn planted alliums and I'm in the process of plaiting/stringing them up after drying them off.  The tomatoes are Sungold and are naturally orange rather then red but still have a superb sweet yet sharp cherry tomato flavour.  Last year I grew four varieties of tomato in a "challenging" year. The sungold came out the best and this year I have room for six plants - all Sungold! The real surprise has been the cucumber which was leftover seed from a failed attempt to grow them last year.  Here's the set up, below, as you see completely outdoors. You could knock me down with a feather when I spotted the fruit. They get the green light!

Cucumbers Three