Growing well

The tomatoes despite the cold weather recently have been growing well, I have had to put a heater with a frost thermostat on at night, this seems to have saved them!
We are now I think past the danger and the forecast predicts good night temperatures, so we should see a good period of growth, I am always amazed at the difference it makes once you can achieve night temperatures above 10c









These flowers are from one of the Beef varieties, they are SO big! Can't wait to see the fruit.

First Flowers

We have the first flowers on the Tomatoes!!
All great news. The recent warm weather has brought them all on well. We are still expecting some cold nights though, so fingers crossed we should be OK.
The picture is a Super San Marzano, these are a plum variety, the rest of my varieties are mostly Red and Yellow Beef types they are not as far ahead as the Marzano, I expect they will flower in about a weeks time.

Planted Tomatoes

We set out the tomatoes into the peat free growbags today, they were getting quite leggy but I wanted to wait until I could see the first truss forming before planting out. They are planted on an angle so as to maximize the height in the greenhouse this will then allow space for an extra truss before they hit the roof and have to be stopped, Last year we managed 5 trusses per plant, which is good going for an unheated system. We have used the New Horizons peat free growbags again, as they were a great success last year, they are easier to water than Peat ones as they don't "ducks back" when dry and I found that the plants did not need extra feeding until much later in the season.

Note the trickle irrigation droppers are in place, although I will hand water for a couple of weeks first to get them well established. We have fixed on the soft string supports too, as the tomatoes grow we shall twist this clockwise around the plant to help give the support it needs, I tend to do this at the same time as I side shoot, it is a fairly dull old job but I love the heady aroma the tomatoes release when handled, so that makes up for it.

flowers

We like to have a few annual flowers to brighten up the borders, so I have sown some Zinnias and Cosmos in Hassey trays. I have also sown some Marigolds to plant around the raised beds to help with pest control throughout the summer

Spring Clean

My Tomatoes have finally got to go out into the greenhouse, they have grown too big for the window sills in the house. So it was time to have a good clear out and first out was the old growbags full of rocket and lettuce, these as you can see from the picture have been laid out along the outside of the greenhouse and into one of the raised beds.

I then sprayed all the walls, ground and roof with a dilute spray of Jeyes, this will help to control all the bugs and diseases that will have been carried over from last year, it is left for 5 minutes and then thoroughly washed off with a hose, you need to be careful not to put any onto the plants, so I did one side at a time to avoid this.

Spring Leap

The last few days have been mild and sunny, the tomatoes have grown 3 inches since the last blog, they are getting a bit leggy and pot-bound, so I have decided to pot them on into large paper pots. I use rolled up broadsheet newspaper, watch the video to see me in action!

Tomato and Pepper plant update

The Tomato plants are growing well, they are about 5" tall with 3 true leaves, the peppers are a lot smaller as slower to get going.

Greenhouse Update

We have got some seeds germinating. The Leeks, Summer Cabbage and Broad Beans are finally coming through.

Autovents

This is the first time I have seen them working since last year! It has to be over 65F before they start to open and it was a barmy 70F in the greenhouse today, Lovely!

Spring is finally here

At last after one of the coldest winters for 30 years we are getting signs of spring

As it stands today

I sowed the Tomatoes and Peppers at the end of January, they were sown in seed trays and put in my homemade propagator, which is made out of a polystyrene box and a light bulb on a dimmer switch.
They were up in 7 days and I pricked them out into the pots you see in the pictures,
The greenhouse looks abit shabby at the moment, I put some winter lettuce and Rocket into last years growbags, so hopefully will get a crop before they need to be cleared out.
I have also sowed my Broad beans into some guttering, these will go outside when big enough.

Greenhouse Construction

I built my greenhouse in january last year, I had a very tight budget and space was limited, so I could not afford a standard off the shelf job and even if I could it would not have made best use of the space available.
As a fairly competent handyman and keen shed builder I decided to make it myself. I surfed ebay for some cheap glazing panels and having trolled through loads of second hand UVPC window sales, found someone offering 8 shop windows from Macclesfield!! They were in hardwood frames and were 2.4m long by 1m wide. I put a bid in for £10 and won it! amazing! There was however a slight problem, I had to go and collect them.... me from Suffolk.... I had a fairly big car at the time and with careful measuring I realised that if I took all the seats out (bar the drivers) they would just fit. Anyway after a 10 hour round journey I had managed to get them safely home. The wood need some TLC a sand down and treatment with wood preservative did the trick. I used these panels around the sides and used clear corrugated perspex for the roof, Job Done!
The windows/vents were made from Polycarbonate sheets with auto vent openers. The auto vents worked brilliantly and well worth the money in saved time and worry.
I also installed a trickle irrigation system on a automatic timer, this too was vital as we wanted to go away for a summer break.