Kitchen Garden Forum

Anyone else noticed this recently?

My only surviving ones are in the greenhouse. I've had a couple of Pantano beefsteaks back in July, then nothing since. Strangest of all have been San Marzano, which we're growing for the first time.

There have been a couple of bunches that grew to far larger than anything I've seen in the shops, again back in July. They are only now starting to turn from dark green to slightly lighter green/yellow.

We've watered & fed them regularly & it's been reasonably warm for the last few weeks.


Colin

Hi Colin

My greenhouse are usually great and this year are total pants. Hardly any fruit and most of that's not ripening. The Cuor di Bue is dropping whilst green, and of the six other varieties the only ones to be cropping are the Sungold and the Tigerella (KG free seeds).

I think it's the lack of sunlight and warmth. Chilli peppers usually grow well for me, but have been like a weather report this year, only flowering when it's been sunny for a week or so.

Have you got a max/min thermometer in there?
I don't know what it has been like in the rainy South but here my greenhouses have been going down to well below 10 deg C night after night which I am pretty sure is what is knackering most of the crops. If my heater was connected it would have been coming on. There is another post about Aubergines and I think it is temperature that is doing for them. Surprisingly the greenhouse Sweet Corn looks fine. It is a season to live on the cabbage family - they are loving it.

Hi Geoff,
I think that you have hit the nail on the head. Night temperatures have been way below 10C for most nights other than the ones following the mini-summer we had lately. Last night we were down to just under 9C and in the last week of July my mate down the road recorded 4C and I was 6C. These low night temperatures are something that we have not experienced before and I have been closing my greenhouse up every night whereas in all my previous years I have had it open from second week in June until the first frosts. To use a Chantallian saying the light levels have been 'pants' all year! This makes a great amount of difference in the whole process of growing and especially the ripening process.
JB.

Geoff wrote:Have you got a max/min thermometer in there?

Hi Geoff, yes there was a lot of discussion about this earlier in the year. As a result I bought a max/min thermometer and a paraffin heater.

Our garden is pretty sheltered and though the temperatures have been approaching 10-11 in the greenhouse on some nights, it's never been lower.

Guess it's just the "pants" light levels then! When it was so hot earlier in the summer, I put whitening on the glass - maybe I should have removed this! However during the last few weeks it's been well over 30 C in the daytime.


Colin

I'm so pleased to find myself in such esteemed company. I thought it was just me.

My outdoor tomatoes are all planted against a south facing fence and usually ripen quite quickly. However I can't recall a summer when we've reached the end of August and I've had only a handful of ripe fruit, so I'm thinking of getting the fleece out and covering them up overnight in the hope that if low night-time temperatures are part of the problem, this will help. I hate having to pick them green and let them ripen indoors. The flavour is always very inferior when ripened that way.