Kitchen Garden Forum

Just had to post these two.
Finished the two beds in my house, just need to do the paved area now.
The picture on the left is the side bed and contains chilli's, two melons and a catch crop of lettuce with some french marigolds to tart it up a bit and discourage bugs.
The picture on the right is the end bed, to the south, and contains tomato plants and more lettuce and marigolds.
Oh and somewhere in the join is a squash.

Hi

I didnt know you could grow chillis outdoors. I have Jalapenos do you think I could put ome outside?

David

Yes Chillis are ok in a greenhouse. I've also grown them outside in the allotment too.

My personal experience was that the yield from ones in the open wasn't as high as from those under cover. I've also tried sweet pepper both under plastic in the allotment and in the open. The ones under plastic produced more crop.

Finally, I'm never sure of the effect of planting into the ground, as opposed to pots. When the rootball fills a pot, does the plant then devote all its energy to leaves & fruit? By the same comparison, does a plant in the ground spend a long time building a big root system, at the expense of fruit etc?

Good question.

As an experiment Ive built some of that square foot gardening stuff on a spare bit of paving so i now have the same varieties of pepper (the normal ones, the long red ones and jalapenos) in the greenhouse, on the plot straight in the ground and in the sq foot.

We'll see what happens!

David

Hi David,
The saying is "If you never suck it you never get to taste it" So I am glad to see that you are having a go. If it works its fine and you can do it in the future and if it doesn't you've still learned something. Always experiment 'cos to me it's part and parcel of the joy of growing.